Living in a Really, Really Weird World (Old)
by Snow-Nightshade
Summary: REWRITEN! Her name is Midori Uzumaki and she was born even before Madara Uchiha was around, she doesn't want to fight head on and so fights as an assassin, she's a dauntless sword user who carries a nodachi a few inches taller than her, and she's a girl who really just wants to bear hug the ever adorable Naruto and he isn't even around yet. Self-Insert (Rating has changed to M)
1. Chapter 1

Dying is painful, shocking, and all together rather horrible. I was walking across the street, trying to get an interview for my first job. It was bright out, hot too, and I had already had my three classes for the day which then resulted in having a paper due the next Monday. My grandmother was helping to pay for my classes as long as I never failed a class, but I was getting a job to try to pay for my classes and books myself.

In my hand was the résumé which I had spent hours poring over to get it just right, and on my back was my backpack filled with books and homework. I was dressed nicely, since I always thought that you should dress to impress even when in school, so I was dressed in slacks and a button up shirt.

Personally, I thought I wasn't very pretty. I was often envious of other girls with their perfectly curled and styled hair. I had plain blonde hair that didn't do what it was supposed to most of the time, a face that just couldn't wear makeup without breaking out in acne. Plain brown eyes and glasses made me a plain Jane all the way around.

I had never even had a boyfriend, and only once did I ever have any sort of sexual experience but I was too embarrassed to go all the way without being married.

I waited for the light to flash green, impatient and huffy from the weight of my backpack, and walked across the intersection without looking both directions like I had been taught as a little kid.

Not even halfway across the road, and a sports car comes barreling down the road have taken a turn on two wheels. The car is swerving drunkenly so I pick up the pace in my nice high heel boots, trying to run across to safety, and the car doesn't even stop at the red light.

Whoever was driving only put on the brakes as he was already halfway across the intersection, probably just having spotted me in whatever drunken haze he or she was experiencing.

I shouldn't have moved at all, but I continued trying to get to the other side of the intersection. The whole fight or flight mentality had me running with my tail tucked between my legs in fright, but the car swerved. Right. Into. Me.

You know, when they say that you can't feel yourself dying because the shock is so abrupt that you literally can't process it in that moment? Wrong. I can literally feel the impact as my hips shatter, legs turn to paste, ribs and spine snapping like brittle twigs. I can feel my skin being shredded as I'm rolling across the street, wonderfully pattered road rash on what skin wasn't pulverized and pulped.

It was at that point that shock set in as blood rapidly drained from my unmoving, paralyzed body.

I can suddenly hear everything, birds chirping, the guy driving getting out of his car a throwing up all over his feet, and a minute later the sirens wailing since the police/fire station was only a hop, skip, and a jump away. Everything is so hyper clear though I couldn't think a single thought among all that information that my senses tried shoveling into my brain.

I get really cold, and the ground is all of a sudden really comfortable. I don't think anything really, nothing but half nonsense such as how I know I missed a question on a recent test, how I forgot to do one of my chores, how I really enjoyed my lunch of chicken and tomatoes with some ranch.

And the last thoughts I had were, "That red paint is really pretty." Obviously that meant I wasn't thinking coherently at all as I was commenting on the blood splatter painting the road.

Next thing I know, I'm having this really weird out of body experience and I am like this ghost with absolutely no cares whatsoever.

These fleshy beings scurried around like ants, but I had absolutely no cares. Seeing my family crying over me produced an uncaring shrug as I knew they would eventually ascend to a higher plain compared to being confined to a bag of flesh so there was no need to mourn.

I floated around, enjoying myself. I had no time constraints, had no need for money or food or other fleshy worries. I enjoyed natural beauty, and anything else I enjoyed when I was confined to a physical body. I was proud of visiting every country I had a list for when I was constrained to the third dimension, and I enjoyed relaxing without question as I had no worries that plagued my mind.

I enjoyed myself, doing absolutely nothing and had no true coherent thoughts save for the most simple of emotions such as joy and pleasure which I achieved through visiting new places and 'learning' new stuff.

That was until I became listless and fatigued.

It was odd, since I had been a little ghostly being that nothing seemed to change, but eventually, I stopped and my energetic being just kind of popped like a shiny little soap bubble.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Having popped like a really shiny soap bubble, waking up was really odd.

I didn't actually wake up but kind of become coherent.

It was warm, there was a constant pulsating beat, and I was really comfortable. That was about it for a long while. I was rarely awake and actually coherent but these little spurts seemed to happen more and more often. It wasn't too difficult to just go back to sleep, but there was definitely one point where I remember panicking because I wasn't actually breathing.

Then I fell back asleep not even the quarter of the way to a panic attack.

Whatever.

However, I woke up again and I was really, really comfortable so I ignored all these instincts that told me to get the hell out of whatever cramped place I was sleeping. I basically just told something/someone to fuck off and I went back to sleep. Annoying thing was that I rolled over and something got wrapped around me, just made me want to glare at whatever it was before going back to sleep.

I slept in this warm, comfortable place for a long while. I was calm and content. No higher thoughts, no memories of much save for interesting snippets that floated around like dreams whenever I was coherent enough to think. I was perfectly fine with sleeping, especially since nothing seemed wrong with that one single bit.

Now, the really uncomfortable bit was becoming squashed through a really weird tube, after being bumped awake by something on the outside of my really comfortable home. It was painful, since whatever tube I was being squeezed down didn't seem to understand that my skull didn't want to fit.

Next thing I know is its cold, I can't breathe as there's something choking me, and these lights are driving into my eyes like fucking needles. I tried seeing what was going on but my eyes seemed to be working even worse than when I wore glasses. That barely made me pause since my little mind couldn't remember wearing any sort of glasses before the idea slipped from my thoughts like water through a sieve.

Whatever is wrapped around my neck was quickly unwound and removed before someone stuck their meaty fingers in my mouth to dislodge my unresponsive tongue.

I scream, I cry, and I think I have a minor panic attack before I'm wrapped like some sort of freakish pink burrito.

Sometime in my panic attack I fall asleep.

Fucking weird. No other way to put it.

It's all panic, panic, pani… sleep.

I crash and the next thing I wake up to is really blurry vision, though I'm used to it as I always needed glasses, and naked boobs right in front of my face.

I gape in shock, can't really help myself because there are these tits just all of the sudden in front of my face. I shut my mouth, and absolutely refuse to do anything but scrunch my face preparing to cry.

At this point, I've already figured out that I'm a babe because I'm wearing what I can tell is a diaper and I'm being rocked by a giantess. After my panic attack that I crashed in the middle from, I wake up to see giants holding me and a room that could only hold giants.

Whatever, I'm as cool as a cucumber, ignoring the panic attack when I was first born. That is until someone undresses me and shoves what I suspect is a thermometer up my butt.

I was not a happy camper and I made sure everyone knew as well.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Being a baby kinda sucks.

No, let me rephrase that. Being a baby really, really sucks.

I wallow in my own filth unless I cry for help, I sleep all the fucking time and barely finish any thoughts before I'm sleeping again, I always feel hungry but I can only seem to eat a smidgen of food, I can only see so far before everything gets blurry, and I can't understand a word my new parents say.

Whatever.

However my mom is awesome, or should I say kaa-san.

Originally I only knew spattering of Japanese from the anime I used to watch, but my kiddy baby brain seems to be fucking sponge. A really, really dry sponge that can grow from the size of a dime and explode into the size of a watermelon.

Over the months I learn everything I can, but I still have to cry for my nappy to be changed. That really bothers me. No wonder little kids can't remember being a baby, it is mentally scarring.

Still, my kaa-san is awesome. She has this bright red hair that just totally draws the eye, and she's the one who wears the pants in my parent's relationship though that's only when in private. Other than that, it seems that everything is all patriarchal. All these guests that come to see my cute drooling and pooping baby self all defer to tou-san.

Still, he's nice when he's around but it's not often.

I suspect it's because he's having to fight or something because I always see him in this odd Japanese samurai armor/ninja outfit that's pretty cool to see. But if I'm in the main room when he gets home, I usually see him with at least a little bit of blood splatter on his clothes and armor.

However, I'm cool with that. I died and I totally remember my last thoughts of thinking my blood was pretty, pretty paint. Though I am definitely not going to go around cackling like a mad hatter while killing people. It also helps that I heard that he was one of the guards of the clan head, and that meant he was a protector and not any sort of gangster or mass-murderer.

~~~oOo~~~

Growing up went quick since it seemed like I slept most of the day away. However I was bored of doing nothing all day but bash blocks on the tatami mats and gum on my white and black striped stuffed tiger.

The first thing I did when I could finally stand up was go over to the bookshelf's, filled with scrolls and dragged a children's book to my mother that she periodically read to me. This started the stage that I would constantly nag at her to teach me to read.

Hiragana, katakana and kanji where the three written languages that I needed to learn.

Luckily I had my stupidly elastic and sponge like child's brain and it went by faster and faster, especially after I found a kanji dictionary to help with the memorization of the thousands of different characters.

I didn't speak, not daring to since I didn't want to seem too smart and freak my new parents out so I stayed silent. I was afraid of being considered some sort of prodigy, especially since I was a fake because I had been born with memories of a twenty year old college student trying for a degree in art.

It didn't matter that I didn't speak since I followed my mother's commands quite easily as I followed her around trying to help, though I was pretty sure I was just a nuisance. I explored my home as much as I could, getting into everything but I wasn't ever let outside without supervision.

As I grew taller, I could reach the books and scrolls on higher shelves in the library, and that was where I learned that I was in the world of Naruto.

I had just found a scroll on how exactly to meditate for the beginning steps of chakra control.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

(Six Months Old)

I could swear I sat there in shock, on my fat little diaper clad bottom, until a grin formed on my cute little chubby cheeks. I was quite excited about learning chakra, the mystical magical energy that could do nearly anything as long as you had the imagination to try and the patience to practice.

I read through the scroll and put it away quickly, definitely not wanting to get caught with it.

That night practiced meditating for the first time, and I felt absolutely nothing.

I had always thought that being born into the Naruto world I would magically know this magical energy of wizardry known as chakra. Come on, obviously I had to have this magical energy that can allow me to bend the space/time continuum, throw fireballs, run faster than a cheetah, create a tidal wave to surf on, and summon animals from an extra dimension. I had thought that because I had spent twenty years in a world without chakra, that being in this new world would allow me to cheat.

Then I remembered that girls were expected to be ninja's as well, and I shivered. It wasn't suddenly as fun as I had been thinking as I sat there daydreaming of all the cool things I could do with chakra.

I was perfectly alright with getting hurt, it happened naturally by falling down or accidently cutting a finger. However for a whole lot of things I would be expected to bite my own finger to draw blood or stab myself if I can't release a genjutsu with chakra.

Purposely hurting myself was almost a deal breaker, but I wanted to be the master of the elements like the avatar from the last airbender. That would be awesome.

So, any free time that I wasn't toddling after kaa-san trying to help but really just getting in the way, I practiced meditating.

It took me weeks to actually understand what chakra was supposed to feel like, and all of the sudden it was so freaking obvious that I didn't understand how I couldn't have felt it before.

My chakra was like warm, melt in your mouth chocolate and yet at the same time it was like the cool shade under a tree yet also a warm pool on a cool day. It was hot and cold and warm and cool, and I loved it.

The first thing I did was call it to my chubby little fingers and I made my fingers glow that pretty blue color. I couldn't help but release the cutest little giggle. That cute giggle that only the most adorable of little kids can produce.

I quickly toddled to my tou-san's office and grabbed a piece of paper from his trash bin to try sticking it to my fingers. I called my chakra to my fingers and tried sticking the paper like glue.

It didn't work exactly like I wanted since chakra was in no way actually that thick. I likened it instead to how water flows with the consistency of air. There was nothing to actually touch when using my chakra, it was just energy. And I had forgotten that.

I tried again and I just kind of grabbed onto the paper with my chakra by creating tiny little loops. The middle of the loops went through the paper but the tops and bottoms pinched shut to hold the paper.

It was exhausting.

The paper fluttered to the ground and I sat there panting like I had run a marathon with sweat pouring down my chubby little face. I gasped in for some air and just sat there for a while before grabbing the piece of paper and toddling off to my room to sleep.

I slept like a log and when I woke up, I knew my kaa-san had been slightly worried since I was normally quite an active little baby. For dinner I enjoyed my apple and carrot mash before I gave both my kaa-san and tou-san a hug and toddled off to my room.

One more time, I tried sticking the paper to my fingers but instead folded my chakra in and out of the paper like a bunch of tiny little waves to stick the paper to my fingers. It worked just as well and I lasted for about a minute before my chakra just seemed to flicker out and the paper dropped.

I was again exhausted.

So I lay down on the mat in my crib, which I had learned to crawl in and out of, and fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

(One Year Old)

Time sure does fly fast when you're busy. I had progressed my chakra control until I was sticking paper to the bottom of my feet and had long since progressed to sticking little bits of my clothes to my skin on and off throughout the day. I also progressed to being let outside in the front garden where I could explore all these new places all on my own.

I suspect it was because I kept getting underfoot trying to help. Meh, whatever.

I had yet to speak much, not to my parents anyways, I didn't want to be seen as any sort of genius. However I did say kaa-san and tou-san a few times, just to make my parents feel happy.

I had begun practicing my letters by painting some really smooth river stones with water. I used a brush that had been in my father's trash bin because it was old and worn out, but I was only really using it to try and heighten my dexterity.

It was a tiring process but when I was going to college, I had been taking art classes galore because I wanted a degree in what my passion was. So I wanted draw more than just stupid scribbles.

I practiced with my beat up brush anytime I was outside and too tired to run around like I normally do, but inside I snuck into the library and read all I could get my hands on.

My stupidly spongy, soaks up everything, elastic toddler brain was like a man dying from thirst. I just couldn't get enough knowledge, and absolutely everything was interesting.

You would think that as an adult in a child's body, I would be totally serious all the time compared to an actual child. No, not at all.

I could get distracted by something interesting or shiny and be occupied for like, ten minutes playing with or chasing whatever had caught my interest before I remembered that I was actually doing something before.

Just the other day there had been this really pretty butterfly, and each time it came close my little toddler attention all of the sudden just completely zeroed in on this butterfly. I chased after that bug for hours like I had blinders on and the focus of my entire world was catching that goddamned butterfly. It finally flew away and I actually burst into tears before calming down from my seesawing emotions to realize I was acting like an actual toddler.

Ugh, that was just not my day.

Kaa-san though, has begun waking me up early in the morning to do these really interesting morning games. We would clap our hands together, I totally know it was improving my hand-eye coordination, and we would stretch.

I will never get over how flexible I am now. It's like my bones are made of rubber and they don't freaking exist. As a college student, I was about as limber as a log. I could reach the middle of my shins when bending over but no farther. Now I could place my hands flat on the floor and still go just a tad bit further.

Though going too far with stretches often caused me to loose balance and fall. Don't judge me, I'm only this cute little ball of chubby cheeks that still waddles everywhere because my legs don't want to work like I want them to all the time.

At least I was out of my everyday diaper, I potty trained myself as soon as my bladder could actually physically allow me to go when I wanted. Though I still had those annoying accidents at night which I couldn't physically help so I wore a diaper at night while asleep.

For now, I'm just trying to forget all of the embarrassing accidents I caused as a baby because my body couldn't actually physically hold anything in, everything just seemed to happen.

Getting away from those mind scarring thoughts, I drag my tiger which I have dubbed "Albino Tigger" outside to lay in the warm sun. I was ready for a nap. So I lay against my Tigger like Trafalgar Law and Bepo, and promptly fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

(Two Years Old)

I was finally shown this little dojo area and tou-san began showing me katas that I practiced in my free time now that I knew what I actually was doing.

Though annoying enough he didn't let me handle any of the weaponry no matter how much I pouted. It probably didn't help that I still didn't speak more than the words, "Kaa-san, Tou-san, please, thank you, and why."

I didn't dare speak more because I knew small children will stumble over their words all the time and create adorable little lisps because they could form certain sounds. However I knew that I wouldn't be able to not say everything in perfect grammar.

Also, I was old enough to actually help kaa-san around the house instead of being underfoot all the time. She was pretty awesome in giving me all these little tasks that I could actually do.

Kaa-san was also allowing me to stand on a chair to help in the kitchen. I was allowed to stir and measure stuff though she wouldn't allow me near the knives. It's really annoying sometimes that my new parents are responsible enough not to hand a toddler any sort of sharp weapons.

But I digress, my writing has gotten a whole lot better and I've given kaa-san an adorable little, "Please?" while holding my brush and some scrap paper.

She gushed over my adorableness and sat down with me to go over my letters. With her help my progress sped up exponentially now that I had a teacher to actually tell me how all the brush strokes were supposed to go so my letters began looking like little pieces of art instead of simple scribbles.

Along with that, I was finally given a blank scroll that I could use however I wanted. I cute little ink drawings that progressively got better and better as I practiced. In the margins I wrote in plain English exactly what I remembered from the manga Naruto, and I wrote what I could remember of all the other manga I had read.

I knew that various techniques could most likely be replicated from across the various different manga with the magical energy that is chakra.

My days blurred together with only slightly harder katas and more difficult and complicated chakra exercises the only real difference.

I had a definite fixation on drawing ink tigers, and the more I practiced the more my parents figured out my absolute fixation on an animal I had never seen before and only had a single stiffed animal of, Albino Tigger.

As a gift for being so well behaved, especially as they had heard horror stories of some of the children of other families, I was given an even larger stuffed tiger since they had seen me more than once napping against my Tigger.

When I received that new toy, one of the few I had since they got rid of many of the small toys that I no longer used nor needed, I hugged the stuffing out of it. It was adorable, soft, and cuddly.

I was constantly rubbing my cheek against its super soft fur and my mother thought I was quite adorable as I dragged that stuffed animal with me practically everywhere.


	7. Chapter 7

(Three Years Old)

"Good morning Midori-chan." Kaa-san said as I was woken up by her patting my futon which I was now sleeping in instead of a crib. I was quite comfortable as I was curled up against my tiger stuffies, which I had practically begun collecting.

"Good morning, Kaa-san." I said before I dressed in some shorts and a simple shirt then folded up my futon.

I walked outside to do my morning exercises which had progressively gotten harder but that was alright, I was enjoying myself.

After the morning exercises, I bathed and dressed in a cute little children's yukata and put up my bright red hair. I helped kaa-san with breakfast which tou-san complimented us for. I had been given some chores such as helping with the laundry by scrubbing any soiled clothes with soap and using a washboard.

I was given some free time after that which I used to practice my katas in my yukata.

I helped with lunch before being set down to go over my kanji. I was forced to write a set of characters down at least twenty times and if one wasn't to my mother's satisfaction, I was forced two write that same symbol another ten times.

After a few hours of that, I was whisked away by tou-san and forced to practice my katas again along with sometimes learning new ones. I was finally given little weighted wooden practice weapons which I was constantly practicing with.

He gave me a bokken, wooden practice sword, and I was forced to do a certain set a hundred times each which had me standing in the middle of the dojo whacking at air for over an hour.

I usually was so exhausted that my limbs would be trembling.

However I forced myself to practice with my chakra some more. I had been balancing little sticks on my fingertips and was practicing the cat's foot technique that my mother had giggled at while giving me little tips and advice for.

My days blurred past as I enjoyed myself learning something new every day.

I was constantly sneaking in the library to read something new and kaa-san was constantly teaching me new little things such as tea ceremonies and the like.

I was turning into the perfect little girl and I was totally enjoying myself.

Everything was something fun and kaa-san was constantly giving me something new to do so I was never bored.

My little spongy brain was constantly given new fuel to use as I went about my day.

Luckily, I was perfectly alright with doing chores lest my father have to beat me for disobeying him or kaa-san.

Knowing I was definitely going to be a ninja, as civilians were easily crushed in a world were ninjas just seemed to sneeze and a forest was set on fire, I really had no other choice.

So I practiced every day and focused on repeating my katas and chakra exercises until I collapsed each night on my futon in exhaustion.


	8. Chapter 8

(Four Years Old) (Changing POV to Third Person)

Midori was growing up faster than her parents would have liked. They had known she was quite smart already, but hadn't figured out how exactly smart she was when a few months after her fourth birthday that she began to actually speak.

Kikyou and Ukitake Uzumaki had been married for three years before finally trying for a child, having been in an arranged marriage. It took another three years to succeed, however the pregnancy was difficult for Kikyou. For some reason, the pregnancy lasted three months more than the average nine month pregnancy and Kikyou could barely stand up for fear of falling over.

The birth was even more difficult for Kikyou as she stayed in labor for thirty-four rigorous hours with nothing to show for it. She had been exhausted and yet the baby still hadn't been delivered. The midwife was forced to call for help as Kikyou gave permission to perform a caesarian section as the midwife had determined that the babe was in distress.

Right as a medic was going to cut into Kikyou's abdomen, the midwife found the child's head crowning.

The babe was born with the umbilical cord wrapped tight around its neck, but the midwife had it breathing and crying quite soon.

Kikyou and Ukitake were proud parents, though the difficult berth had Kikyou labeled as sterile because of major bleeding right after the birth.

They raised their daughter, who was quiet most of the time and only crying when she needed something, and knew she was quite smart as she began crawling and walking within only a few months.

However, Kikyou and Ukitake had worried because other than a few specific words, their daughter never spoke. They knew she was smart because she could read and write quite easily as well as perform various exercises without any crying or sniveling, but she never really spoke.

It was a few months after Midori's fourth birthday when she spoke while going over calligraphy with her mother, "Kaa-san, when are we going to work on chakra? I read a scroll on it already, and it seems quite important."


	9. Chapter 9

(Four Years Old)

Midori finally felt that she could speak up without being looked at as a total genius, though she suspected that her parents thought her as smarter than average. Truthfully, Midori didn't care if she was thought of as smart but she didn't want the title of genius attached to her name.

Remembering all the genii in Naruto, she knew that every single one of them had something horrible happen. They were also always pushed to start fighting soon, usually only taking a year in the academy before being shoved off to war such as Uchiha Itachi and Hatake Kakashi.

The first thing she asked was the one thing she had undying curiosity for, chakra. So, during calligraphy lessons with her mother, Midori asked, "Kaa-san, when are we going to work on chakra? I read a scroll on it already, and it seems quite important."

Midori had continued drawing her little kanji symbols, always being careful because too much ink and the ink bled, to little ink and the lines broke, too much pressure and the lines were fat, too little pressure and the lines didn't look right at all.

Kikyou on the other hand was shocked silent as she stared at her daughter. A daughter who had only ever spoken a handful of words, never actually a true sentence. She gathered herself and went back to her own calligraphy, "Well, can you tell me what you remember from what you read?"

Midori nodded, "Chakra is our life force mixed together from spiritual and physical energies. Balanced and used correctly, chakra is what is used for various techniques commonly refered to as ninjutsu, genjutsu, and nintaijutsu techniques. Iryo ninjutsu, fuinjutsu, kekkei ninjutsu, and nature transformation is all performed using chakra."

Kikyou just nodded, not saying anything as she was reeling from the shock of her daughter speaking so articulate sentences without any sort of childish lisp.

From their conversation, Midori was introduced to a whole host of new chakra exercises. She was also forced to begin mediating with her father for an hour each day.

Having remembered how Naruto gain master of Senjutsu, or the sage arts, Midori took to meditation without complaint. It just irked her periodically that she would fall asleep. When she asked her father if he was disappointed in her for failing to meditate properly he only replied with an indulgent smile, "The key to meditating is relaxing. By the way you were snoring, I know you have definitely relaxed."

Midori's education was heightened as it seemed as though she was getting bored more and more easily. So her parents crammed in lessons on etiquette, music, geography, mathematics, science, chakra, fuinjutsu training, weapon's training, cooking, survival, herb lore, medical training, and gardening.

Every morning Midori would awake, do her morning exercises, take a bath, do her chores which included helping out in the garden and herb garden, help with breakfast, clean up after breakfast, work on calligraphy, learn the basics of fuinjutsu, then she learned geography and mathematics. For a break, she was guided through a tea ceremony which meant she had to watch everything that her mother did while she performed the ceremony for her father while having everything explained to her.

After a short lunch with tea where she learned more of the womanly arts at her mother's knee and medical arts where she was tested on the herb lore she learned early that morning, she went outside with her father. Under his guidance, she began a warm up, practice her katas, run for an hour, practice with her bokkun, practice with her new staff, practice with a bladed fan, and practice her with her shuriken and kunai before she was allowed to cool down then take another bath.

After dinner, Midori sat with her mother to practice with the instruments she had chosen: the biwa, the koto, the sanshin, and the flute. She was then given some free time to do what she wanted which usually had her asking her mother for more fuinjutsu lessons until it was time for bed.

During the weekend, Midori went out into the small forest behind their home to camp for a night or two with her father, learning new things for survival. When at home, she performed various tea ceremonies for her mother as well as practicing to walk, run, and even fight while dressed in kimonos and other heavy garments. Though even while practicing with her mother, Midori was forced to do her various exercises every day which included running and practicing with her various weapons.

Midori enjoyed learning all the womanly arts, having been fascinated by them in her previous life. However it struck her that it seemed like she and her mother were always having to serve her father without complaints while he just sat at the table working on paperwork or fuinjutsu seals whenever he wasn't out guarding the clan head. It annoyed her that she was being forced to mend and clean his clothes, along with all her other chores, while he was usually at the table drinking tea and doing paper work. It irked her to no end because he used his time at home to catch up on any paperwork since he had clan training with his fellow guards.


	10. Chapter 10

(Five Years Old)

Midori was exhausted, she felt lucky that she already knew a good portion of any theoretical work that her parents gave her but it seemed that she could never meet their expectations when it came to physical standards.

She would be the first to admit that in her last life, she wasn't the most physically fit person out there. She detested working out, seeing it as a waste of time when she could be practicing her art work or practicing on her cello. She hadn't been over weight or anything since she didn't pig out on food, but she wouldn't be running any sort of marathon.

Now, Midori was having to exercise every single day, and while it was interesting to learn new kata, she hated having to run or other types of activities because she found it boring beyond all belief. Therefore, she resolved to cheat.

Having been studying fuinjutsu under her mother for a year now, Midori was well on her way to understanding the basics and even intermediate fuinjutsu. It just seemed to make sense. Fuinjutsu was described as many different things in the different pages she had read on narutopedia or even in the stories on fanfiction. But to her, it was like symbolism and math made into art.

Each symbol was part of an equation and every equation had to equal what she wanted as an output. Her best example would be x-number + n-number had to equal y-number. However y could be something as simple as meaning storage, or it could mean something as complicated as transportation from one place to another. The real kicker was that the chakra had to agree with how the x+n equaled y or the seal would blow up in your face. Chakra was like a really strict math teacher, you had what you wanted, though sometimes what you wanted had to be changed anyways because it had too complicated of an equation, and if all your work to create the equation didn't match up exactly to what you wanted as the outcome, it failed.

If that wasn't bad enough, because nothing was too simple, seals were also based a lot on symbolism. You could have twenty different symbols meaning nearly the exact same thing however each symbol could also have another meaning that would unbalance the whole equation. It didn't help that you could even create your own symbolism. Creating your own fuinjutsu language helped to compact large scale fuinjutsu works, and since only the creator knows exactly what the made up symbol meant, then it was nearly impossible to plagiarize seals that were compact unless you knew what that compact seal was actually supposed to be when enlarged.

Luckily, Midori was able to have help when first learning seals since Kikyou helped to show exactly how everything could and couldn't be linked together. It just didn't help that one symbol could be linked with a hundred other symbols but when two symbols were linked together they could only be linked to category A symbols not category B even though when separate, they could link together with category B symbols.

It was all very confusing and often left Midori to glare darkly at her fuinjutsu work which forever liked to befuddle her.

However, with all this practice, Midori was finally starting to get the gist of everything. So to cheat at the one thing she hated above all else, and saw as a waste of time that she could be doing something else, Midori started her own fuinjutsu project.

Her equation would eventually equal out to 10 pounds added onto her entire body every time she added chakra with the addition to showing exactly how many levels she added as well as an easy to use activation/deactivation sequence that only she could use.

It took weeks and weeks of finagling to finally get the seal correct. When she finally did activate it, the fuinjutsu work that took up an entire five foot scroll, compacted to a few pretty squiggles surrounding her ankle with a small little number acting like the clasp holding together the anklet. Midori used chakra to increase the level four more times and it felt like she was walking through super heavy water with how much resistance she was fighting against. She released the seal and activated it with only increasing the level twice.

By the end of the day, she was truly exhausted and had almost fallen asleep at dinner. Her parents had been amused, both of them having already figured out exactly what their daughter had done since it was actually a secret coming of age ritual in the clan. They thought it was hilarious that Midori was starting to cheat so early in her life by using the gravity seal, while they personally had only begun figuring one out when they were preteens.

Being in a society of seal-masters meant that every single Uzumaki began at least proficient in the making of seals, and using a weight or gravity seal was one that all children would eventually think up to speed up their training.

They sent Midori off to bed and sent each other sly little smirks thinking of their fellow clansmen's faces when they learned exactly how old it was when their daughter created the seal that marked her as an adult in the eyes of the clan. Though they had both secretly agreed not to tell anyone until Midori was at least eight so that she wouldn't be shipped off with a team to fight or do jobs that the clan was hired for so early in life.

It didn't help that Ukitake had almost been killed during a fight against the Uchiha when he and the clan head had gone to a meeting with their allies, the Senju. They didn't want their only child out fighting just yet.


	11. Chapter 11

(Six Years Old)

On Midori's sixth birthday, she was finally allowed to meet the other clan children. About a dozen others had been invited to her birthday ranging from her age to a few preteens. She was considered the proper age to begin socializing with those her age as she was no longer considered a little kid who needed the full care of her parents.

She was given a massive stuffed tiger, twice as big as she was, and she bowed politely to her parents. They had obviously given her the new stuffed animal since she was growing a bit too big to lean comfortably against her other two stuffed tigers. Those two now had honorary placements on the shelves in her room. Her in drawings were hung up on the walls all around her room each piece of art sometimes getting replaced when she drew something better.

For her birthday, Midori received plenty of new and more expensive sumi (ink sticks), high quality paper, and plenty of new weaponry. Midori thanked everyone with bows and polite smiles, before finally being moved over to have fun with all the other children.

Truthfully, her birthday was annoying. She hated having to socialize with other kids who, to her, acted like hair-brained twits who could hold an actual conversation without using improper grammar every other word.

She had enjoyed her private birthdays with her parents, where she was given a day off after receiving a few gifts, and she wasn't forced to socialize.

Her birthday, however, marked the day when other families invited her over for playdates. Truthfully she knew that the other adults were trying to see if she was worth any sort of betrothal contract to their own. Even Kikyou and Ukitake invited plenty of other children, trying to see which ones they approved of over the others.

Midori grew annoyed that her training was being interrupted so frequently so that all these simple minded children could gawk over how princess-like she acted.

It also didn't help that Midori began speaking in third person after having met the clan head at her birthday. He had just exuded an aura that was so profound, so commanding, that she tried to emulate his behavior. It didn't help that she had admired Sesshomaru from the manga Inuyasha, and how proper he was. Though she tried to be kind instead of frosty or cruel.

"This Midori wishes to continue her training without interruptions." She spoke at breakfast one morning, having had a playdate the day before and had come home with nerves stretched thin and a very grumpy attitude.

"Well, Midori-chan, we can see if we can stop taking as many invitations, though you must go to various social gatherings." Ukitake allowed, having seen how annoyed and grumpy his daughter had been when coming home the previous day. He had watched as she locked herself in her room and meditated and tried relaxing but always seemed to twitch and flinch when she heard some unexpected noise.

"This one finds such an arrangement agreeable." Midori spoke calmly before sipping on her tea and leaving the table after gathering her dishes.

Kikyou could barely hold in a squeal at how cute she thought her daughter to be, speaking so polite and acting so graceful. Their daughter was truly trying to act like a little princess and it didn't help that she had that cute princess cut with bangs just above her eyes, side bangs right at her shoulders, and the rest of her long hair put up with cute but durable hair ornaments.

Kikyou helped her daughter with the dishes before they sat at the table to work more on calligraphy and fuinjutsu. They both sat in seiza while working diligently, Kikyou writing out fuinjutsu tags for her husband to use when fighting and Midori practicing her own fuinjutsu work.

Every week, Kikyou would challenge her daughter with something new to work on and Midori was forced to work on the project until she finished it though she was allowed to ask for help. Her geography lessoned had turned into history lessons and Kikyou imparted all the history of the Uzumaki clan that she could into her daughter. Midori enjoyed these times as they went at a slow, relaxing pace as Midori had asked if she could draw different pieces of history.

In the main hallway, there were over a dozen different battle scenes drawn in ink that had been put up from such history lessons while Ukitake had gifted or sold many of the extra ink drawings since Midori drew at least one new painting a day.

It had embarrassed her something fierce when her family had been invited to the head of the clan's home and had seen a handful of her paintings hanging on one of their walls. The paintings themselves were beautiful with one being of cherry blossoms blooming with a traditional japanese castle in the background, another was of a lazy kitsune laying under a tree wrapped with shimenawa (rope) and shide (white folded paper in zigzags, usually at shrines), the final was of a partial willow tree with two cranes under the branches.

Midori had created her signature marking to include fuinjutsu so that the paintings couldn't be ruined or destroyed easily as well as keeping the ink from fading.

She had blushed red at seeing her ink paintings placed in such a position of honor and prestige, meaning that others considered them works of art and not just some little kid's work like finger painting or the like. Midori was then commissioned by the clan head to create another but this time of just a simple oak tree, a painting of a river, and finally a painting of a dragon.

Midori spent some of her free time figuring out how she would draw these commissioned pieces, working herself into a tizzy over it, before sitting down and unfurling a piece of scroll six feet tall and three feet wide. She drew the dragon who seemed to be swimming with graceful loops in its serpentine body, she detailed the scales, the claws and the teeth so well that it seemed to disguise itself in the churning waters before finishing the dragon's head with powerful eyes and whiskers to wizen the dragon. She then drew a simple oak on a thinner piece of scroll, though only a foot shorter. Finally finishing the river with scroll work the same size as the one with the tree.

For her work, she was given tidy sum of 2,500 ryo for the art work (250 US dollars) and a steady stream of commissions soon came her way as apparently her work was given to the senju leader as a gift.

It was all kinds of embarrassing until she got used to it, though it was interesting for Kikyou and Ukitake to see their daughter as famous for something other than ninja work.


	12. Chapter 12

(Eight Years Old)

Midori was finally allowed entrance into the Uzumaki academy or more commonly referred to as the training camp, and it was basically just a training ground where children were taught and evaluated by other clan members to see if they were allowed to fight for the clan out on the battle field.

She had quickly risen in the ranks compared to her fellow academy students, mainly since she saw it as a waste of time and wanted to get out of the academy as soon as possible, and within only a few months, she was put on a team of experienced clan members who were the to help teach her out in the field without getting her or themselves killed.

To Midori, who was annoyed by the sniveling and whining brats at the makeshift academy, was thankful for being let out early with a hitae-ate with the Uzumaki swirl placed firmly on her forehead. The hitae-ate, Midori learned, wasn't what is was going to be during Naruto's time, but was instead a piece of armor to prevent easy arrow shots to the forehead as well as identification to what clan she belonged to if it wasn't readily obvious from her bright red hair.

The softer, womanly arts took a backseat as weapons training, taijutsu, and ninjustu took presidence. Her nice child yukatas and kimonos were traded out for sturdy battle kimonos and pants while her bokkun was put away as she was gifted with her own sword set. She had been practicing with the nodachi, katana, and tanto so she was gifted a child sized nodachi but a regular tanto which she could grow with. She was also gifted with a child sized naginata and a child sized bow.

Midori had no plans for the future as of yet since she still had no idea exactly when in the timeline she was at save for the warring states era. She also only knew that because the Senju and Uchiha were still fighting each other so no Konoha had been formed, it didn't help that she wasn't high enough in the clan to be able to join in on any political talk so she had no idea if Madara Uchiha was the clan head nor if Hashirama Senju was clan head.

Who was she to ask about politics when she was practically a nobody and whose father was only a guard to the clan head without any sort of influence in anything. She might have been smart, as well as an adult in a child's body, but she had practically no status since she was also just beginning her career as a ninja for the clan.

Instead of thinking of the 'what ifs' and planning for various future problems she really wanted to change, Midori focused on how exactly she was going to live to make the changes. She certainly didn't want to worship Jashin and become so psycho mass murderer like Hidan from Yugakure nor did she want to use the Earth Grudge Fear technique used by Kakuzu from Takigakure, Midori wasn't even going to dare go down the path of the Living Corpse Reincarnation Technique use by Orochimaru.

The only thing interesting she had readily available was fuinjutsu. It was the only thing that would allow for her to live without having to be insane and totally unethical. It definitely helped that she had been practicing her chakra control for years, practically ever since she first felt for her chakra, and was good enough to use basic Iryojutsu.

Her plans went slow though since she was constantly training with her two older team members, Itsui Uzumaki and Yuri Uzumaki who were both in their teens, and the team leader Hisane Uzumaki who was in his early twenties. Every weekday, we were taking small little missions, missions Midori knew would eventually be classed as d-rank once Hashirama created the village of Konoha, but they were now just piled together in a group labeled easy missions.

We worked on teamwork plenty as well as our individual strengths, and Midori found that she was definitely the fastest in her team after one team practice.

"Alright team, I know Itsui and Yuri have already created the seal which is the secret coming of age ritual all Uzumaki's are tested by, but I think that Midori should be told so she won't fall behind and get hurt because she can't keep up." Said Hisane early at practice.

Itsui and Yuri grumbled a bit since, to them, it seemed like Midori was getting special favor about being told the secret to becoming an adult within the clan without having to truly work for it, but accepted anyways since they didn't want the 'baby' of the team accidently getting hurt or killed while out on the field.

"This Midori is confused and she would appreciate it if you would elaborate further."

Hisane twitched at Midori's formal language, though accepted it as one of her weird quirks just like hos Itsui always had to be chewing something and Yuri would embroider in her free time. "Well, everyone on this team has some sort of gravity or weight seal on them that helps us survive as such a small clan against powerhouses like the Uchiha's. Now, I won't give you any sort of seal but I will help if you as for it."

Midori gave a polite little bow but replied, "This one thanks you but this one already has such a seal. This one created a gravity seal before this one turned five."

Hisane raised a disbelieving eyebrow, "Where is your seal then?"

Midori raised her pants and rolled down her sock to show the little anklet like seal on her ankle. "This one has been raising the level of the seal for years while releasing it once a week to get used to the speed and strength increase. This one has been doing this for years and for every level of the seal, ten pounds were put against this one's entire being." Midori showed the small little number that acted like a clasp holding the chain of fuinjutsu together, it was a small ink number of 26. "This one cannot do more at the moment as this Midori has recently added another two levels. This one has learned after the first ten levels that adding two levels at a time is much easier and this one suspects that she will be able to add more levels at a given time in the future."

Yuri choked, "Ya, what is twenty extra pounds compared to two hundred-forty pounds. Here I thought I was super smart having figured out the secret to being an adult in the clan before leaving the training camp but you've had yours for years!"

Itsui nodded, "Well, I've had mine for a few months and I'm nowhere near two hundred pounds without flooding my muscles with chakra to carry such a weight."

"This one has been forced to use another seal that stores Yin-chakra to heal the body so this Midori does not grow short. This one would be severely disappointed to be stuck below four feet for the entirety of her life, the Uzumaki chakra and vitality also help this one to keep from remaining short."

Hisane just chuckled before ordering his team to release their different seals and do a hundred laps around the village. Normally, with each wearing their gravity and weight seals, they were quite close when running with only Itsui coming out faster which forced his two teammates to work harder to catch up. Without the weight seal, Midori left her two teammates in her dust and was left working on her weaponry skills with Hisane.


	13. Chapter 13

(Ten Years Old)

Midori was stalking carefully through the foliage while making sure not to leave any trails in the mud of what she knew would eventually be keyed as the Mizu. The Mizuki clan had been grouping up against the Uzumaki and Midori had gained enough status to go on such missions.

She had sighed a breath of relief when she was no longer having to do fetch quests or body guard missions. Midori remembered her previous world and how ninja were in feudal Japan. Those ninja were exactly what she wanted to be, not some sort of glorified wrecking ball where the clan head pointed and suddenly a dozen 'ninja' had changed the landscape. Not to say she didn't like all those large and flashy techniques, but she wanted to be a true ninja. Midori wanted to get in and out of somewhere unseen and undetected like a ghost after either pilfering all the goods or committing an assassination that never actually looked like an assassination.

True, she had first balked at the idea of killing, but after the required desensitization training she had gone through as well as a few bandit attacks where it was kill or have your friend and teammate get harmed, Midori would always choose to protect herself and her friends first. That obviously didn't mean that she didn't cry her little heart out as well as, with the help of her parents, build a little shrine for the people she had killed.

She had cried for hours with snot dripping from her nose and eyes so puffy it was amazing that she could even see. Her Uzumaki generic purple eyes had been bloodshot and she didn't sleep well for weeks before she got a stern talking to from her team leader.

Over the last two years, her speed had nearly tripled through the training with Hisane and her team, and her use of the nodachi had become something to be feared, though only skill wise since she wasn't anywhere strong enough to beat her father or team leader. She had taken a short apprenticeship with a medic, expanding on the medical knowledge her mother had taught her, and learned that she hated working in any sort of clinic or hospital.

Instead, she incorporated her medical knowledge into her fighting style, using the various pressure points while fighting to her advantage much like a Hyuuga would with Tenketsu. Midori focused on a quick, style to hit once before backing out since she was too small to take any sort of retaliation from her enemy. So great was her focus in killing on the first strike that she had practiced the Iaido, quick draw sword technique, thousands of times so that she could accurately hit what she wanted to hit and back off to hide.

Midori made it a goal that every time she was stealing from anyone from what would soon be Mizu with Kirigakure, she would look for the hidden mist technique. It just seemed perfect for her fighting style.

Her tanto was used for obvious assassinations and fighting indoors, her nodachi was used with her iaido techniques as well as close quarters combat, her naginata was used for midrange combat when she didn't want to get too close to her opponents, and her bow was used as long range combat. She only carried a handful of the customary kunai and shuriken as they had their uses but more often than not, Midori didn't really use them.

Midori clutched at the hilt of her tanto which was strapped horizontally at the base of her back and silently crawled up the side of a tree that was tall enough to see over the surrounding forest. Her chakra was compact and hidden by a seal which disguised her with natural chakra so there wasn't any sort of empty space where she was standing. An empty space would have alerted any experienced sensor because an empty space is obvious when there is chakra everywhere else. Like putting a bowl in a tub of water, the bowl will float so it will obvious be discovered, press the bowl down and there is empty space in the bowl which will be discovered, but disguise the bowl by filling it with water and it won't be discovered so easily.

The Mizuki clan, no matter how much we Uzumaki liked to insult them by calling them water-logged or water brains, lived above a lake. It was smart because while they didn't always have to be in water, they could easily escape if attacked.

Midori used a small barb that she had attached to the kashira, or butt cap, of her tanto to draw blood before swiping it across a seal on her navel. The seal was quite large compared to her normal compact seals, but it served its purpose well. It drew in nature chakra naturally, mixed it with her own chakra, and stored it carefully just waiting to be used. It was a slow draw of chakra constantly from both nature and her own coils so she wasn't affected too badly but the draw was noticeable with the draw constantly set to ten percent of her chakra reserves when on a mission but at eighty percent when at home.

This constant siphoning of chakra from her coils caused her chakra network to increase its production of chakra since her chakra network constantly thought that she was using chakra and nearing chakra exhaustion.

The chakra siphoning, mixing, and storage seal itself was attached to other seals that did various different things so her belly looked like some sort of sunburst with nobs at the ends of the different rays.

The project had taken over a year to complete, being the sole thing she dedicated her extra time to, and it had been slow going even with the help of the clan library and other seal masters. The most difficult part of the seal was the ability to add on or delete extra seals after the main seal had already been drawn.

She dragged her bloody finger in a circle around the main seal to activate the seal, the circle of blood unlocked the seal like a key compared to just a simple swipe of blood so it wasn't accidentally activated by blood splatter, and drew a blood line to an extra attached seal that she wanted activated like the symbol from her previous life for men or the astrological symbol for Mars.

The extra seal was a very specific transformation seal that would last a certain amount of time depending on what connecting time symbol Midori drew blood on. Starbursts with starbursts.

The stored chakra activated along the chain of seals Midori had specified and she was quickly transformed into a kestrel, with beautiful striped feathers and a cute little face, Midori set off towards the village.


	14. Chapter 14

(Ten Years Old)

Chakra was amazing, no way around that.

To Midori, the transformation technique was way undervalued.

She had remembered that Naruto actually created a solid transformation technique to turn into a woman, with real breasts. So, Midori knew she probably had the same amount of chakra that Naruto had in his pinky finger so her chakra siphoning, mixing and storage seal was her way around that. She suspected that Naruto had overloaded his transformation technique just like he overloaded the bunshin, but instead of the technique flopping it became solid. Exactly like the shadow clone technique.

Now being an Uzumaki, Midori knew she probably had a quarter of the chakra of Kakashi Hatake before shippuden who in turn only had a fraction of a fraction of chakra that Naruto had as a preteen.

To get around Naruto's blatant overuse of chakra, Midori used her chakra with nature chakra to overload her own transformation technique which was one of the seals attached to her chakra storage seal.

It seemed like there were five levels of chakra usage in a technique: too little, just right, too much so the technique is overpowering or useless, overload the technique so the technique is useless, or overload the overload rate to make the technique just so much more awesome.

Naruto's transformation technique was at that fifth stage of overloading the overload rate and so a regular henge which could pop when hit or the user was distracted was now impossible to get rid of save by the caster and it was a solid transformation.

Kestrels were Midori's preferred mode of disguise, a small bird of prey that was fast enough to get out of the way if she was accidentally discovered.

She had already practiced flying before, having always wanted to fly with actual wings in her previous life, and it was practically instinctual at this point since she had flown so often after having completed her seal. It made her head ache though, trying to understand how exactly it was possible but she just ended up shrugging and using the excuse of "chakra is magical."

Midori chirped lightly before setting herself on a corner of a roof and looking over the Mizuke clan. She eyed a small bird flying above her and flew after it quickly, only to nab it with her sharp little claws and land safely on another rooftop.

Raw meat would have grossed her out once, but the solid transformation was completely solid. This meant that she had the organs and digestive system of an actual bird. So if a bird could eat raw meat, why could a transformed bird with bird organs eat raw meat?

She clawed into the dead bird to get at the meat itself because no matter the transformation, she was still human and was in no way going to eat the organs. She munched and nibbled at her meal, scaring off an alley cat with a little show of aggression and a swipe of her claws, while taking in all the movements of her 'prey.'

The Mizuke clan went about their business like normal folks, just with some ninja added in. Truthfully, Midori noticed that the clan wasn't all that different from her own. They had the clan head and main family, the ninja, and trainees, and the civilians. Everyone went about their day to day life exactly like the Uzumaki save for the training was a tad bit different and they focused on their kekkei genkei much more than fuinjutsu.

She finished her meal and flew off towards the clan head's house. She nestled there easily enough, fluffing her feathers a bit since it had gotten a tad chilly, and watched some more.

Midori had set the timer for five-hours, the perfect time for a true stake out when transformed as she was. It helped that ninety-nine percent of the ninja would never be able to suspect she wasn't an actual bird. She wasn't a chakra empty space like someone hiding their chakra, but she didn't have the regular amount of chakra a bird would actually have. A really, really good sensor would only be able to sense the natural chakra in the air which the seal made it seem like she was just natural chakra floating in the air, though they might be able to physically see her. She was much like a ghost in that aspect, seen but not sensed or felt.

Pretending she was napping Midori overheard the plans for an attack on a recently deployed Uzumaki shinobi team. Apparently, there was a traitorous spy among the civilians, many of whom were not true Uzumaki's but were welcomed as such since they provided essential jobs while the full-blooded Uzumaki's protected the village and did outside jobs to bring in extra money.

Midori waited for a while longer until the meeting ended, and carefully flew through an open window, having sensed that no one was inside the building any longer. It was pure luck that she landed on the window sill before actually entering or she would have been trapped by ninja wire that had been set for the window, probably there were probably booby traps all around the rest of the building as well.

With a click of her beak from annoyance, Midori unset the trap and flew through into what appeared to be a large office. Midori hid carefully in a small space and waited for two more hours before the transformation ended.

Quick as a whip, Midori snatched up every single scroll and piece of paper she could get her hands on. She ransacked the desk for hidden compartments, the tatami mats for hidden doors or safes, the paintings on the walls were carefully taken down as she wasn't one to destroy art to see if there was anything hidden, and the shelves and bookcases were completely destroyed for any sort of secret space.

She found a hidden safe which she just sealed the whole thing away instead of trying to take the time to unlock it, a hidden compartment in the desk full of documents, and a small hidden shelf behind a fake backing in the bookcase filled with scrolls.

Midori sealed everything away right as the shoji doors to the office were pulled open. Midori was thankful that she was wearing a disguise to hide the fact that she was of Uzumaki heritage. She wore a black wig over her red hair and a full black and grey hakama kimono though the pants were tighter fitting then traditional. She had zori sandles compared to the traditional rubber shinobi sandles with black tabi socks.

Over her outfit was a traditional sleeveless haori. It was loose and flowing, going all the way to her calves with a hood that shadowed the upper half of her face. To hide the rest of her face was a black face mask much like one Hatake Kakashi along with a scarf that was pulled up to hide the protective mask. The two tails of the scarf flowed down her back a bright red, the only real color on her since her outfit consisted of black and grey.

The tanto was tied firmly at the small of her back, horizontal to the ground. Her kunai pouch was tied firmly around her right thigh, since she was right handed, and her storage pouch contained plenty of easy access ninja wire and smoke bombs.

She reached back in her pouch and grabbed the smoke bomb right as the person entering the office gave a shout, "Intruder!"

Midori threw the smoke bomb down, causing it to explode before she used her tanto to cut down the other person who had tried tackling her with a kunai. She swiped her thumb on the kashira of her tanto to draw blood and circled her chakra seal with a quick line directly up to transform into her kestrel form.

She flew out of the building as quick as she could, evading the startled forms of angry ninja, and left as quick as her wings could beat.


	15. Chapter 15

(Twelve Years Old)

Midori was stuck resting at home and she was bored out of her mind.

She had gotten hurt while out on a mission, her arm got broken when an earth user used an earth technique to throw her into a tree and her arm snapped like a dry twig.

Midori had screamed, sending her two teammates into a frenzy, but she had used a bit of quick thinking to save herself the humiliation of not even defeating the man who had broken her arm.

Her arm had practically shattered, and she could only do so much with the iryo jutsu that she knew. The medics of the clan had taken one look at her arm and declared it on the mend before releasing her to go home as long as she didn't do anything with her arm until it fully healed. She didn't need to stay in the clinic since they had so many more ninja who needed their help that had more serious injuries.

Midori's arm was set in plaster before she was sent home for rest.

Her orders to not do anything with her arm translated into not doing anything at all. Kikyou was so fretful by the fact her daughter broke her arm that she didn't let Midori do anything at all.

Midori was therefor out of her mind with boredom.

So, instead of lounging around, Midori began drawing up new seals.

She quickly gained access to the Uzumaki library and began reading through the various kinjutsus and forbidden seals, not that they were actually forbidden, but they were recommended not to be used because nine times out of ten the seal or jutsu caused death. Midori was looking through these dangerous techniques and seals to see if she could mash a few of them together to come through with her hair brained idea.

Midori knew that Mito Uzumaki wasn't even around yet, and Midori truthfully didn't even know when the woman would be born, and Midori still had to live long enough to try changing the future. Though, she still wasn't quite sure what she wanted to try changing.

One thing at the top of the list would definitely be the destruction of Uzu. She was determined to stop that since it was now a matter of clan pride, since she herself was an Uzumaki and these people weren't just fictional characters in some story.

"Tadaima, haha-ue!" Midori called out when she got home later that night, scrolls tucked into her obi which she was determined to pick apart and study.

"Okaerinasai! Are you okay? How is your arm?" Kikyou asked while she came out of the kitchen to worry over her only child.

Midori smiled warmly and kissed her mother's cheek, "Everything's fine haha-ue, do you wish for help?"

"No, you just go sit down and relax." Kikyou threatened while waving a spatula around and pointing to the low dining table.

Midori gave a little bow before setting her scrolls on the table and sitting in seiza. She immaculately began scribbling away at a blank scroll all of the little notes she was making as well as diagrams she felt she might need for her project.

"Dinner will be ready soon and your father will be home shortly so put away those scrolls and wash your hands." Kikyou stated from where she was still cooking in the kitchen.

"Of course haha-ue." Midori quickly rolled up her scrolls after blowing them dry so the ink wouldn't smear, and cleared the table quickly before standing up and heading to the washroom.

As always, it was a challenge to wash her hand since her other was encased in plaster and held against her body with a sling, but she came out clean.

"Kon'nichiwa, chichi-ue." Midori greeted her father politely before sitting down gracefully in her own seat.

"Kon'nichiwa, Midori-chan, how is your arm?"

"This Midori's arm is on the mend, honorable father, and how are you?"

"Good, are you having any trouble with your studies or training?" Ukitake asked while Kikyou set a bowl of rice in front of him.

"Yes, chichi-ue, this one has reached a plateau in her training. This one has struggled to continue past what she has already learned in taijutsu and kenjutsu. Though this Midori has learned many new fuinjutsu and other techniques. This one has also finished with the chakra nature transformation techniques given to her for the water element and asks for a guide to lightning nature transformation."

Ukitake gave a little chuckle as he ate his dinner, "I suspected as such. Only experience will really help you with your kenjutsu and taijutsu, you sneak around so much that you do not get into half as many battles as I did when I was your age. This is the first time since you have been out in the field that you have gotten hurt enough to lay off missions for a while. I had more trips to the clinic than I care to admit and there many times that I was dragged back half dead by my teammates."

Kikyou gave a scowl which quelled her husband who seemed to be reminiscing things she would much rather forget.

"However, I can spar with you whenever we are free to help. I do not have a lightning scroll but I have a team mate who does, I can ask to borrow it for you to help with your training. However I have a handful of water techniques that I wish for you to learn before working on a new element."

"Of course, chichi-ue, this one is thankful." Midori replied politely before finishing her meal in silence.


	16. Chapter 16

(Thirteen Years Old)

"This one does not wish for an arranged marriage." Midori scowled at her father who was sitting at his office desk. "This one wishes to become an elite guard before this one broaches the subject of betrothals or children."

Ukitake gave a little nod of agreement, "Yes, you have a bright career ahead of you, and I do not wish to halt your growth as a powerful kunoichi because of a betrothal contract. However I will have you attending the various meetings and functions that this family is invited to."

"Of course, chichi-ue." Midori complied easily enough, though she thought it as a waste of her time.

If she wasn't doing something such as training, or relaxing by painting or meditating, she thought it was a waste of time. It was Midori's greatest trigger to set her off in a bad mood was having her time wasted by something inane. She would much rather be training since she still was barely chuunin level, or what she classified as chuunin because there still wasn't any sort of formal system.

It annoyed her that no matter the training, an adult ninja could usually destroy her without too much effort. In fact, compared to her father and team leader Hisane, she could be counted as an annoyance. Barely noticeable, but just enough above the rest to turn a head, but not much else.

It irked her, that no matter the training, against a truly powerful opponent, she was helpless. Though she was perfectly fine with decimating cannon fodder, she wasn't yet strong enough to even consider touching A-class foes with even less of a chance against S-ranked monsters.

Midori bowed to her father and left the office pleased though, because her father was laid back enough to consider her own wishes of not being sold off like cattle to the highest bidder.

Going outside, Midori brought out her nodachi and began practicing while pumping chakra through the blade. She wished to create a sword technique that could cut down a hundred trees in one stroke, but all she had managed so far was a measly cut in a tree twenty yards from where she was practicing.

In her previous life, she had always been fascinated by the Japanese swords, and the nodachi had been her favorite. It meant that she definitely enjoyed swinging a practice bokken around for hours and hours because there was just something so alluring about holding such a sharp, pointy piece of art in sword form.

She had actually sat down and drawn dozens of ink paintings all trying to capture the beauty of the sword.

Now, her weapon just seemed to irk her as she practiced, because she just couldn't get it to do exactly what she wanted. Half the chakra she forced into the blade dissipated before she could actually complete her technique, and when she executed her technique, it was always weak and near useless.

So, to counter this, Midori was using lightning chakra to put piercing power behind her cut as well as refining her technique again and again. She continued practicing, coating her entire blade with electricity, and swung the blade horizontally at the tree she was practicing.

Panting for breath, she heard a crack and the tree slowly fell to the ground, cut nearly all the way through from twenty meters away. Midori smirked and raised her blade to practice the technique again, and charged lightning chakra through it.

Her chakra chirped and chattered as she refined it into the edge and tip of her blade before swinging once more. The wave of lightning that was released made all her hours of practice worth it as she watched it hit and cut through three more trees as the crescent wave had gone farther with more power now that she had figured out what she was doing.

Midori charged her nodachi once more before it gave a sharp crackle sound. She looked down to her blade and her eyes widened as she noted the spider web of cracks that marked nearly the entire blade, before it shattered completely.

Pieces of metal just dropped to the ground, and the blade just broke in pieces. Midori clenched her teeth in anger but sighed instead of screaming which she really, really wanted to do.

Today, was just not her day.


	17. Chapter 17

(Thirteen Years Old)

Midori followed resolutely behind her father as they walked towards a blacksmith who was a family friend. Her nodachi's pieces had been gathered and collected with great care and set in a long box so that the piece weren't mixed in a mess, but one could still see what the blade would have looked like before shattering.

The blade itself was in so many pieces that it would be impossible to repair it, but Midori wanted some way to memorialize her sword which had gone through five years of battle with her and saved her life more times than she cared to admit. She had meditated with her sword for countless hours and had practiced with it even more. It was safe to say that she had been attached to her blade, and that it shattered really had her in tears.

However, no matter how attached to her sword she had been, she knew that it had probably been time to upgrade her sword to a full nodachi, one that would stand taller than her and she could grow into.

It would need to be something other than regular steel though, because Midori was afraid of destroying her blade by channeling too much chakra through it again. The blade would then have to consist of the godly expensive chakra conductive metal.

Midori, while she was thinking on it, wanted something other than a regular sword. She had admired all dangerous weaponry and the like, but the Seven Swords of the Mist really drew her for they were practically every swordsmen's wet dream. She was thinking of a sword that would cause injuries that would never heal but only to her enemies. With allies, Midori wanted to heal them with a stroke of her sword.

While in the blacksmith's shop, her shattered sword was set in a mold of molten glass. Her sword came out beautiful, though still broken, and she thanked the blacksmith sincerely for his work.

Back at home, Midori set her sword on a sword rack in her room with the scabbard just underneath, and watched as the sun reflected of the pieces like art. There, right there, Midori knew how she was going to not only fund her new sword but make it herself.

She just had to remember that a sword had a soul and a sword was art in and of itself. Art was one thing that she loved above all else, and she would learn how to create her own sword.

Midori smirked and looked outside, her shoji doors open to the back yard. She knew an old smithing technique that would be perfect. It was only theory so she would need to practice many times and change many, many things with how she was going to do this, but she was determined. Stubborn enough as well to try it on her own without asking for an apprenticeship.


	18. Chapter 18

(14 Years Old)

Midori sighed as she was walking next to her father away from a clan gathering. There had been a plethora of young Uzumaki men that had propositioned Midori for a date, but she had turned them all down. Not only were they teenagers, but she was the mental equivalent of a thirty year old. Plus, she had no care to date at this moment.

It also wasn't helped by the fact that Midori knew that she absolutely had to live long past any of them would be dead and buried. She had no wish to outlive her spouse, and she had no wish suddenly have to tell someone she was engaged to why she felt the need to become immortal.

Ukitake on the other hand, was slightly relieved that Midori kept turning down all those offers. Not only was Midori his little girl, but he had no care to see her married with children of her own. He and Kikyou had married young, and though they had waited a few years before having a child, Kikyou had nearly died. Then, the moment their daughter was born, they knew she would do great things. He was also worried that Midori would just get up and leave if he or Kikyou ever tried enforcing a marriage contract on her.

So, he and Kikyou broke the bounds of forcing their daughter to be married at such a young age, though most of the eligible suitors were still lined up trying their hand at gaining their daughter's hand. However, he hoped that she might find someone she loved, but it seemed she was too mature to try for any of those that were her own age. However he shuddered at the level of maturity she might find attractive, that would mean someone twice her age or more.

What amazed him, as he walked next to Midori who was dressed in a beautiful kimono, was that she was always doing something. Most children her age, even those who are ninja, often times are immature and wish to do things such as gossip or play around. Ukitake had been watching his daughter for the last year even create some sort of forge in which she was ever so slowly learning how to create weaponry.

The clay forge was dome shaped with a massive door which Midori used to clean out the forge, and a smaller door in which she used to actually heat whatever metal she was using. He had watched her create some mizu bunshin to help with the bellows and shoveling in fuel to keep her forge going as she patiently heated whatever metal she was using. Though it amazed him to see what exactly she was doing.

She had spent an exorbitant amount of money on black clay, fine iron sand, and various other tools.

He had actually sat down and watched her once, seeing how she was forging her weapons, and learning by trial and error. That day, he had watched as her clones spent hours getting the exact layering of sands, clays, charcoals, all with different types and thickness. He had watched her clones, since the real Midori was actually training with her team at the moment, heat and layer and use the bellows to heat up the entire oven for half the day.

She had taken over a month to figure out how she should layer the various bits of clay, sand, and charcoal to get an optimum temperature along with a constant temperature without fluxing.

When she came home after training, she had gotten something to eat before quickly putting on an apron. Her clones had already begun heating up exactly twenty different sand mixtures, though only the first was ready to actually begin forging. She had used water to rapidly cool the new metal, made from the iron sand, and shattered it carefully before selecting certain chips of the metal. She did that with every single mixture of metal so she had twenty piles of purified metals all slightly different from each other.

It had taken hours to finish everything and sort through the metals for what exactly she wanted, and then she began the actual forging.

Ukitake watched, with tea in hand and Kikyou at his side, as Midori began heating up three different piles of metal. One was green in color, one was red, and one was simple iron. She heated them with took a few minutes, before taking what had been the green metal out to hammer it into a foot long rectangle only an inch wide and barely half a centimeter thick. She had continued flattening it and stretching it until Ukitake was sure that it was only a fraction of a centimeter. Midori then folded it exactly twenty times, each time she thinned it out and folded it length wise.

She had two other clones doing the exact same thing with the two other metals.

He had been surprised when she layered the three metals together and hammered them together before folding them together again and again for exactly a total of sixty folds.

At that point, Midori had finished shaping the metal into what it would become, a tanto. She layered black clay onto what would be the blade and reheated the metal again before dunking it in a barrel of water which was still pretty warm from the other times she had dunked the blade in. The excess has washed off when dunked in the water but a rippling effect had been left on the edge of the blade, the entire blade had ripples because of the different colored metals that had been folded dozens of times.

Ukitake watched as Midori then had a clone spend over an hour carefully polishing and sharpening the blade which was very, very difficult with how tough the blade was that it didn't want to change anymore at all. The clone of Midori was still sitting there an hour later trying to sharpen the blade, and it was a very slow process. This just meant that the sword would take more damage and wear while still remaining sharp.

Another clone had built the saya, or scabbard, and had carefully sanded down the inside before gluing the two halves together. Midori herself had painted then laquered the saya before trying the sageo, or cord, around it so it could be attached to a belt. Another clone was creating the handle which consisted of the ho (wood handle), fish skin, tsukato (handle wraps), menuki (palm ornaments), kashira (butt cap), mekugi (bamboo pin), nakago (tang), fuchi (metal sleeve), seppa (metal spacer), tsuba (hand guard), another seppa, and habaki (scabbard sleeve).

It wasn't a handful of minutes when the clone sharpening and polishing the blade finished, and Midori began assembling all the pieces together. The blade was completed, but Midori still didn't quite like how it had turned out so she merely grumbled before grouchily handing the blade to her father and left to get something to eat.

Right now, Ukitake watched her, so lady-like and beautiful, he could hardly believe all that she knew and all that she accomplished. She was strong for someone just entering her teen years, yet she was humble and not actually realizing how strong she was. Ukitake gave a little sigh and looked at the lights that lit up the village. He loved his village and clan, so much so that he would die for them. However, he knew his daughter felt slightly different. She didn't have the same ingrained loyalty that had been so ingrained into his very being. She was loyal yes, but she wasn't going to jump in front of the blade any time soon.

He thought it odd, because she had all of these ideas but he had no idea where she got them from. It terrified him sometimes that she would act on some of these ideas, ideas that no clan anywhere would ever approve of. He worried more than he cared to admit, and had literally felt the gray hairs growing whenever Midori was involved while he worried, but he loved her anyways. Always would and always will love her, his only child.

Ukitake looked down at the tanto tied to his side. The same tanto Midori had created all those months ago. It had saved his life already, and been the envy of many of his peers for its alien beauty and unmatched sharpness. He was proud to carry it around, something his daughter had made with her own two hands.

He looked at her, walking so calmly at his side, looking more like a delicate civilian princess than a kunoichi with calloused hands and scars to match. Ukitake was proud of her, and he wasn't willing to give her over to anyone else. Not until she wanted it, and he knew that wouldn't be for a long time.


	19. Chapter 19

(Fifteen Years Old)

Midori yawned as she woke up. She had been sleeping against a massive plushy she had sown herself in boredom one day, and it was shaped like a chair with a back and arm rests, but it was a tiger plushy that fit against the head of her futon.

Getting up and getting dressed was the next thing she did, not one to laze about when she knew being lazy could one day be her death in this bloody world. She walked outside and began her morning routine. She ran for half an hour with her weight seal increased again, and then did various other activities such as push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, squats, lunges, punching a log, kicking a log, and dozens of stretches that kept her flexible enough that she could do a forearm stand with her feet flat near her face and her entire body bent backwards.

After her morning workout, Midori created a few mizu bunshins to do the chores around the house before getting something to eat herself. She was finally old enough to do the Uzumaki chains, since it was a dangerous technique that required a certain level of chakra and chakra density that only came with age. When a person ages, their chakra naturally becomes more dense which is another reason why very old shinobi, such as Sarutobi Hiruzen had been so dangerous, their chakra density and their experience.

She practiced using the chakra chains, which also required being an Uzumaki with the special Uzu chakra, for a little while before making more mizu clones to help around the house and then heading off to team practice.

Midori stopped at the mission office, run by the clan head and elders, and received a mission scroll to complete with her team.

Itsui and Yuri were already sparring against each other while Hissane was currently on a mission. "Ohayogozaimasu, Itsui-kun, Yuri-kun."

"Ohayo!" Yuri and Itsui greeted back, stopping their spar to greet their teammate.

"This one, has good news, this one and her teams have been chosen to partake in a mission to retrieve and artifact from the Yamatai clan. The artifact belonged to a noble family, before it was stolen. This team was assigned the task of retrieving the item and bringing it back to our employer. The money given to the clan upon the completion of this mission is a large enough sum that the clan elders have pushed this on a team with higher qualifications."

Yuri snorted, "We've been going on back to back missions lately to sabotage our enemy clans. This will be a break that I think is long overdue. I practically have only a single set of my kunoichi outfits that hasn't been stained by blood."

Itsui sighed but agreed with Yuri. Though he wasn't often getting bloody since he stayed a lot as backup on such missions. He wasn't near as good at stealth as his two female teammates, but he was a better heavy hitter and tracker then both of them.

Midori herself, had been on twice the amount of missions compared to her teammates. Being an amazing saboteur had its good points, but she was more of an assassin. This meant that Midori went on plenty of solo missions without her team. Midori often hated those missions, but being so good at stealth and one hit kills meant that she was obviously a good assassin. It had all started at trying to hit fast and hard trying not to get hit since her small body couldn't take a hit when she was eight. Now she felt like she couldn't wash the blood off her hands and that they were forever stained.

Her paintings had shone this change in her psyche. Where before she had drawn relaxing, natural and beautiful paintings, now she drew darker themes. Dead bodies lying bloodied by weaponry, skeletons, skulls, ravens, women from the celebration she remember during the Day of the Dead in her old world, sharks, thorn covered roses, gravesites, and other dark themes. Everything was still beautiful, with flowing lines and delicate detail, but the themes of her paintings had grown increasingly darker. Her paintings had fallen off the civilian market but the shinobi side had begun snapping them up as quick as Midori could make them.

"This one will be waiting at the docks for her team in an hour. Pack for two weeks." Midori said before using sunshin to head back home, not waiting for any confirmation.

It took only a minute to grab two scrolls she kept prepared for her missions. She had a handful of scrolls labeled for different things such as a simple mission, week long mission, two week mission, month mission, and six month mission. These scrolls were filled with supplies to last the specified time plus a week extra just to be on the safe side for when missions go belly up. She grabbed the scroll labeled two weeks, and she grabbed her gear scroll which was filled with practically everything she might need or have use of on any type of mission she had ever been on.

From there, Midori grabbed her armor and clothes that were to be worn on missions which consisted of her grey hakama top, black pants, actual leather boots since Midori refused to wear shinobi sandals, black leather gloves, and a black facemask that came up past her nose to hide the lower half of her face. Her armor consisted of black leather bracers etched with fuinjutsu seals disguised as tiger stripes, black suneate (shin guards) that tied over her boots, black sode (japanese shoulder guards) that fit tightly around each biscep, the sode were connected to metal pauldrons that fit tight to her shoulders, the pauldrons were connected to a thick armored collar that came up to her ears on either side of her neck, she also had armor around her torso that was finely decorated, and two kasazuri (plated armor) to gaurd on either side of her hips to her thighs.

(A/N: .com - armor hatake by kanzzzaki)

Her hitai-ate with the Uzu clan spiral went on her forehead, and her kunai pouch was tied securely around her right thigh. Her tanto was tied to the small of her back with her large supply scroll tied underneath. Her nodachi would have been carried over a shoulder, the weapon being too long to carry any other way lest it drag on the ground, but she had only just fleshed out the fuin seals that she would be placing on the blade. Instead, she was carrying a naginata which she was well versed in using in a seal on the back of her left pauldron, therefor she would only have to reach back to her left shoulder to unseal her weapon. Finally, the trademark bright red hair of the Uzumaki clan had been tied up in a single tail.

Midori smiled warmly to her mother as she left her room all decked out in her armor ready for her mission. "This one is pleased to say goodbye before she left for her mission, and this one will be back within two weeks." Midori gave a polite bow to her mother before give the older woman a gentle hug. Midori made a few quick bunshins to clean up her forging oven while she left for her mission, and sunshined to the docks where Itsui was waiting.

He was dressed in armor as well, though not anywhere near as form fitting around the shoulders and torso as Midori plus his armor was bright red like the Uzumaki hair. Itsui also carried a katana at his side, well versed in using the weapon but it was not something he used for every confrontation since he was more of a ninjutsu specialist. His red hair was short with only a few strands falling over his forehead, and his eyes were the common Uzumaki violet.

"Hey Midori-chan!" Itsui waved excitedly, reminding Midori vividly of a puppy.

"Itsui, it has not even been half an hour since we last saw each other." Midori spoke with a raised eyebrow. It took so long only because she took her time putting on her armor which was a common protection nearly all clans shared in this time of war.

"So? Jeez, you need to lighten up a bit!" Itsui smiled warmly while nagging on his teammate who he had always seen acting prim and proper. That was one thing that confused him about her. She was so prim and proper yet she had refused any sort of marriage contract where as both he and Yuri had been in marriage contracts. He had already married to a cute little Uzumaki girl just within the past year and Yuri was planning her wedding for next year.

Itsui had invited his team to the wedding and had been absolutely amazed that Midori had actually shown up since practically the entire village knew that she hated clan gatherings. When asked, she had replied, "I hate wasting time, but you are my teammate and I also like dressing up for something I deem worthwhile."

From that point, they had gone beyond just teammates to actual friends since Itsui had always though Midori too serious to have a close friendship with.

Yuri came in a sunshin ten minutes after Midori wearing armor that was twice as complicated compared to Midori's armor, but it was fancy and told of how much money she had spent to get it with its beautiful etchings and silk tied overlapping plates. Yuri had splurged on her armor, wanting to look good even when dressed for battle. "Hey guys, are we going now?"

Midori nodded before leaping off the docks and to the sea which was churning lightly even in the protected cove. The cove protected the docks and ships from the churning whirlpools that guarded the entire island. She ran swiftly across the water, headed for the whirlpools around the island.

Itsui and Yuri leapt after her, running just as swiftly over open water, and they followed behind their team leader as they raced for the mainland.


	20. Chapter 20

(Fifteen Years Old)

Midori had led her team through the ever shifting maze of whirlpools and they stepped onto dry land exactly nine hours after leaving Uzu. Running straight would have only taken them four hours since Midori assumed they traveled at high chuunin or jounin speed, but the ever shifting maze of deadly whirlpools made the trip five hours longer.

It was a good thing that they were all Uzumaki's with the Uzumaki stamina or they would never make it without getting exhausted. Midori had a slight headache from running through the whirlpools because these natural hazards weren't silent at all. Instead, they roared light beasts loud enough to drown out a person yelling right next to you. A few hours of constant, ear numbing roaring would give anyone a headache, but Midori only rested for a few minutes on the beach of the mainland before darting off with chakra aiding her speed.

Itsui and Yuri leapt after her, keeping just a bit behind her in a triangle formation.

They were all silent as they headed to their destination, mentally preparing for the mission though they each knew that it should be an easy in and out type mission.

The land was covered in forests and Midori was well versed in hopping from tree to tree. The forest's branches were like a thousand different pathways all available for travel, you only had to pay attention to see it. She jumped quickly from branch to branch, around tree trunks, and using thinner branches to swing across gaps with her momentum alone.

Her armor was silent, as well oiled and taken care of as it was, Midori was pleased to hear not even the soft scrape of leather on silk as she had added fuin seals of silence all over every single piece of her armor. She was silent as a wraith as she jumped through the trees, not even a mark of her chakra left behind nor the scrape of a boot on a branch, not even a twig or leave was broken as she passed through as if she was a ghost.

They stopped for the night, sleeping in the trees since they had no need of a fire for warmth because their chakra could keep them warm enough. It was also a safety measure against having anyone nearby see their fire and come investigate, which always meant a fight was about to happen since the chances of meeting an allied clan member was rare when out in the field.

Midori and her team ate as they ran, too professional to stop like little kids on their first out of village mission, and they ran without pause to their destination save for sleep. They only really paused for sleep because running at night was tedious and unnecessary when not on a highly important mission that was on the level of ANBU mission, from what she still remembered of the classifications.

They swiftly traveled through what would be Land of Hot Water, Rice, Waterfall, and into Earth when they finally stopped just outside of the valley which their quarry was located. The civilian compound was right next to a ninja clan, Midori suspected that the ninja clan protected the civilian one for the money and other goods that ninja couldn't get or make themselves. Midori scowled and gave a hand signal to her teammates to back off.

She transformed into her kestrel form, only for two hours, and quickly scouted the civilian compound. The artifact that they needed was some old clay bowl that had been made by some old dead famous guy that only became famous after his death but was dirt poor and scorned as trash while he was alive. She spotted the bowl sitting on a place of importance, right next to a whole group of other artifacts and items Midori assumed had been stolen because nothing looked like it belonged together save for all the artifacts were expensive.

With quick wing beats, Midori flew back to her team and transformed on a tree branch above their heads. They jumped in surprise when she suddenly jumped down to stand right next to them after her two hours of the transformation were over. "We will not be breaking in until dark. This one shall create an illusion tag so the civilian will not notice their artifact is gone. This one will also be stealing the other artifacts that she assumes were stolen as well. Be prepared to leave after this one has stolen all the artifacts and set the tag."

Yuri and Itsui nodded before jumping into the trees to nap until dark. They all dozed, alert but resting for hours. They didn't move but to stretch once in a while so cramps couldn't set in, but they waited. Midori was leaning against the trunk of the tree she was resting on, her legs outstretched on the tree branch that she had chosen to rest on. Itsui was resting on a branch a bit higher on the same tree, and Yuri was laying down on a wider branch lower in the tree.

It was nearing dark when three little kids, the oldest could be no older than ten, walked right under the tree that Midori, Itsui and Yuri were resting on. Midori hadn't even sensed them coming, she deduced they must be from the ninja clan who must have some sort of kekkei genkei. She wasn't the best sensor in the Uzumaki clan, but she was fairly decent with a range of just over a thousand meters. That meant that these kids, still in training, could hide their chakra well enough to escape her notice. It also didn't help that these three kids had been able to disguise their chakra to mimic the signature of the goats they were herding.

All three of the Uzumaki's froze, watching with baited breath as the three children horsed around uncaring to how close they were to their three potential killers. Midori made a silent hand signal, telling her two teammates to hide carefully so the three little clan kids couldn't detect them.

She herself didn't move an inch, frozen like she was stone, and watched the three playing children carefully, right until one of them dared the other to climb the tree to find a birds nest.

With a signal, Midori and her teammates had leapt from the tree to each force a child to collapse unconscious without expelling any chakra. Midori looked to her two teammates having felt the flare of chakra that the youngest unknown boy, who was laying collapsed under Yuri, had given off in his fright.

"This mission must continue. However someone must have felt that flare and will come investigate. They will know something has happened so we hide these three and continue on with the mission and finish it now." Midori unsealed a bit of rope and cloth before she tied up the child she had knocked unconscious and gagged him with the cloth. Her teammates followed her example in tying up and gagging their two victims and watched with raised eyebrows as she slung her child underneath a particularly large goat and tied the child firmly against the animal's belly.

The stink of the animal hid any scent the kid gave off and the long fur hid both the rope wrapped around the animal and the child on its belly. The goat gave a bleat in slight distress, not liking what was happening to it but calmed when it was released to roam back with the herd of other goats. Itsui and Yuri did the same thing with their children, and they were impressed with how hard it was to spot the children who were now hidden and constantly on the move.

Midori led her two teammates to the other side of the two compounds and small village they were located in, and with the setting sun at their back, they ran across the open field for the civilian compound. They ran swiftly, without breaking any grass beneath their feet, and quickly made their way into the building where Midori had spotted the old bowl. Yuri and Itsui quickly began sealing away everything that hadn't been nailed down while Midori quickly began painting an illusion seal on the floor. Within only a few minutes, everything had been sealed away and Midori had completed the seal.

She charged it with the nature chakra stored away in the seal on her belly before taking point to leave as swiftly as they had arrived.


	21. Chapter 21

(Fifteen Years Old)

Midori burst silently through the open window they had enter and left at a swift sprint with Itsui and Yuri trailing behind her. They could hear calling and yelling in the area where the team had almost been compromised by those children so Midori assumed a worried parent had gone out looking and still hadn't found the three children.

Midori silently urged her teammates to run faster, trying to leave as fast as possible. She jumped quickly from tree to tree, she saw a small clearing that was a little too big to jump across so she jumped midway with her teammates just behind her doing the same thing. Her leg muscles were already clenching in the reflex to jump again when a brace of kunai flew through the air to block her jump. She reflexively blocked the kunai and jumped forward, trying to run away swiftly.

A patrol unit had spotted them escaping and tried stopping them. However, Midori was in no mood to get into a flashy showdown with the other ninja when it would be easier to just outrun them. Itsui and Yuri followed her lead and didn't bother even halting their pace as they blew past the other ninja.

"Trespassers!" The ninja called out, giving chase while flinging their weapons around trying to get a lucky shot.

Midori set a faster pace, however these ninja seemed to be good sprinters. While they might not have the stamina to keep up the speed for long, it would be enough to catch up and force an engagement with the three Uzumaki's. Midori continued on, trying to get distance between what would be a fight and any reinforcements.

They raced forward until the enemy was practically nipping at their heels, and Midori spun around with her chakra chains bursting from her back catching the enemy nin off guard. Her blue chakra chains, made from thick links that were entwined and weaved with much smaller chains, were each tipped with two straight one sided blades (A/N: like the Spear of Longinus from Evangelion only blue colored). Midori's spear headed chakra chain pierced through the unsuspecting bodies of two of the nin pursuing her and her team, blood bursting from their bodies before they dropped lifelessly to the forest floor.

The last nin gave a cry of anger as he barely dodged, having been far enough away to see the attack coming and react.

"Tch, this one needs more training." Midori scowled darkly and dodged the jet of water the enemy nin had shot at her. Itsui came up from behind his team lead and with a well-timed chakra technique, the last nin fell dead while his attention had been focused on Midori. "Let's go, we've wasted enough time."

Midori made to jump and start a swift pace back home, but over a dozen nin had them surrounded having been following the trail left by the now dead patrol unit. Their sprint had been fast enough to have finally caught up and surround the three Uzumaki's but not before Itsui had killed the third nin.

Midori scowled and gave a hand sign to her two teammates. Itsui and Yuri used a simple shunshin to suddenly appear back to back with each other and Midori in a triangle formation on the forest floor where Midori had also shunshined down to.

"Hmph, fucking trespassers, you should have stayed home suckling on your mothers' tits, kiddies." The lead shinobi called out, trying to get a rise out of the three Uzumaki.

Midori scowled and ignored the enemy shinobi while addressing her teammates, "They've seen us, so no survivors. Understood?"

"Understood." Yuri and Itsui answered.

The three Uzumaki drew their weapons and prepared for a fight. Midori drew out her naginata, since her nodoichi was still in the works and not yet completed. She held the weapon so the black polished wood was held behind her back and the one sided blade of the spear head was pointed to the ground. Midori crouched down with one foot in front of the other, her free hand creating the seal of confrontation in front of her, and she eyed the enemy nin with disdain.

Wind blew through the trees causing the leaves to rustle as if caught in a wave, and the enemy nin were all taut as a bowstring where they stood above the three Uzumaki in the trees. An unseen signal had all the enemy nin jumping with either hand seals flashing or weapons raised while the three Uzumaki gave their own counter-attacks.

Midori had charged her naginata with chakra and with a swing, she had forced a crescent of crackling chakra to cut through the space in front of her. Out of the five attacking her, two were caught by her initial wide-range technique and fell twitching as if caught by a seizure from the electricity coursing through their bodies. However, those two were dead before they even hit the ground, the electricity too much for their bodies to handle and it fried them from the inside out.

The other three dodged and attacked quickly, trying to kill her with different earth and water techniques. She jumped above a spear massive spear of earth which would have skewered her through the chest, and used her naginata to attack the nin coming from her left. That nin spit out some sort of high-powered water jet that Midori dodged before swinging her weapon behind her to block a thrown kunai.

Midori dodged a kick, swinging the butt of her naginata to give a solid hit to her taijutsu attacker. The hit was blocked and so they were forced into a high-speed battle while she was forced to dodge the ninjutsu attacks from her other two opponents. With a deft flick of her naginata, the kunai that had been thrown at her was deflected and she had to dodge another hit by the taijutsu nin.

An arrow came speeding to her and nearly knocked her flat as it split part of the armor on her back and punctured into her chest.

With a scream, Midori used another wide ranged technique with her naginata that was dodged by her three opponents. Luckily, it gave her the space she needed to do a faster and more precise technique. She spun her naginata around herself and charged it with water natured chakra, forcing a rope of water to form from the tip of the blade. Charged with lightning from a seal near her hand, the long whip cackled darkly before Midori swung her weapon and wrapped the water whip around the taijutsu user.

The man screamed as electricity shocked him, and Midori raced forward to plunge her blade into the man's torso. She released the technique to swing her spear behind her to cut through an earth jutsu with a slice of chakra. The earth wall that had raced to crush her, split in two and Midori was safe from being crushed. Mud balls flew through the air and Midori had to put her strength into deflecting the mud from hurting her.

Walls of water tried to surround her, but Midori only jumped up and away. A nin had been waiting for her to jump and Midori barely had time to bring her naginata in front of her to block a fist encased in stone. Another fist dodged under the staff of her naginata and smacked into her gut.

"Agh!" Midori cried, blood coughing out from her badly damaged organs, and she was slammed into the ground where the walls of water then crashed down on her.

"Midori!" Yuri cried out in anger and tried battling their attackers even harder, her chakra chains whipping around to crush her opponents but were constantly being dodged. Itsui was also trying harder to get to Yuri, who he had great teamwork with, and Midori, who was the team leader despite her younger age.

Coughing blood, Midori scowled darkly at her attackers, she blew air from her nose which bubbled upwards as she was still trapped underwater. With a bit of applied chakra, Midori swung her naginata to dispel the jutsu. Her weight seal had been deactivated once the mission had begun, no need to have a handicap when she could be attacked at any moment when out on a mission, so she was pissed that these shinobi could keep up no matter the rigorous and hellish training she and her teammates went through.

The jutsu dispelled and Midori had just blown it up with her own technique so it fell like rain on everyone fighting.

"Sequence 7!" Midori yelled before swiping blood from her chin onto a seal on the staff of her naginata. Yuri and Itsui heard Midori yell out and quickly jumped away from the water soaking everyone. With a cry, Midori stabbed her lightning covered naginata into the water soaked ground which lit up every single enemy nin who were unprepared for the attack.

Six nin fell, collapsed as the lightning shocked them enough to paralyze them. That was enough for Midori to release her naginata and form the hand seals for a water technique, "Water Style: Drowning Lake!" From her mouth, Midori spit out enough water to fill a small lake, drowning the collapsed nin who lay paralyzed underwater. The water formed a dome shape, encompassing every single combatant in water tall enough to cover the trees in the area.

The dome's membrane was just chakra, keeping the water in the tall dome shape without collapsing as Midori kept it constantly fed with her own chakra to stabilize the mass of water. The enemy nin had no way of escaping before they were entrapped by the technique but Itsui and Yuri had already known what would happen and were safely standing on top of the water dome where the only place not covered in a chakra membrane was located, a weak spot if one knew to look for it.

A taijutsu nin swam swiftly, almost unimpeded by the chakra laced water, and tried attacking Midori who was preparing her final technique.

Sequence seven first starts as a quick shock to the enemy when in overwhelming odds, then a technique to drown the shocked nin, and finally another technique to finish off the last of the nin entrapped by the second technique. The guidelines were up to interpretation on how exactly one executes the sequence of techniques, but it is mainly a warning that Hissane had come up with along with eleven other sequences used for various scenarios.

Midori smirked and changed a good portion of the chakra inside her body into lightning before expelling it all in one great burst. Everything within the dome was electrified. Those few that might have survived were paralyzed by the shock and died from drowning, unable to move and escape.

With a wince, Midori released the technique and so the water dome collapsed. Itsui and Yuri landed safely on either side of Midori who was spitting out a glob of blood on the ground.

"Let's go, we need to leave." Midori said while wincing and feeling for the arrowhead that was lodged in her back, the arrow shaft having broken when she was smacked into the ground.

Yuri and Itsui nodded and followed Midori in a fast sprint as they quickly ran back home, both thinking that the stupid bowl retrieval mission should have been shoved down the client's throat when it was given to the team.

Halfway across the Land of Rice, they were ambushed by a different group of nin. These were fire users and they loved spitting fire and throwing explosives everywhere. Exhausted and with Midori injured, they were forced to fight since there was no outrunning these ninja who were as fresh as daisies.

Midori started the fight with a wide ranged swipe of crescent shaped lightning chakra from her naginata's blade. She caught only one with the attack and the group of five nin was down to four. Midori growled as she twisted her body around to dodge the fireballs sent her way. Luckily they weren't in a forest but on a rocky cliff top, that meant no forest to burn down around their ears.

Istui was attacked by the taijutsu nin, one who used some sort of technique to cause explosions whenever he touched something. The first and only time Itsui threw a kunai at the nin, the kunai was turned into hot shrapnel that tried peppering the area in front of the enemy nin twice the speed that the kunai was thrown originally.

Yuri was attacked by an older woman, one who seemed to enjoy spitting fire just about everywhere. It was also some sort of flammable syrup so it stuck to everything and continued burning for an entire minute before dying out. Yuri was also being attacked by an earth user who was throwing rock spikes around like candy, and setting mud traps everywhere so the footing was always treacherous.

Midori herself had gotten a shinobi who seemed to enjoy throwing explosive tags everywhere which were made from sloppy sealwork making them dangerous but not as damaging as an Uzumaki explosive tag, and he was apparently from the same clan as the woman attacking Yuri. So, not only did he throw explosive tags everywhere, but he spit fiery syrup everywhere which caused the tags to explode which then caused the flammable syrup to go flying everywhere.

More than once, Midori had been saved from small little burns from the splatter of the flaming syrup because of her armor. She was constantly dodging globs of flaming syrup but it was impossible to dodge all the little drops since they seemed to be falling like rain. It didn't help that the nin had spit out a technique that was exactly like rain save that he used the flammable syrup.

Midori gave a grunt, sweat breaking out on her forehead and burns marking little spots all over her body, and she swung her naginata with a wave of lightning chakra at the enemy nin.

The shinobi just laughed as he dodged, "You can do better than that kitten! I want to see you scream before I'm through with you, this is just too much fun!"

Midori struggled to catch her breath as she dodged another whip made from the flammable syrup.


	22. Chapter 22

(Fifteen Years Old)

Midori was pissed.

Not only had they been found out as they were fleeing the scene of their robbery and gotten chased down by fucking sprinters, sprinters who were fast enough short distance to catch up to Midori and her team who had more stamina than speed compared to that clan. They had then gotten ambushed by another group of ninja who seemed to be fighting more for the thrill and bloodlust than anything else. On top of that, Midori had gotten hurt and her team was exhausted.

Itsui was running of fumes and Yuri had just gotten stabbed by a kunai to the thigh so she was barely surviving in her fight.

Midori was hurt, exhausted, and pissed beyond belief that no matter how much she trained, it seemed like there were monsters everywhere she looked. She suspected there were so many "S-class" ninja because everyone was constantly fighting. Therefore, because everyone was fighting, those few exceptional who survived were the best of the best. Unfortunately, Midori was not yet the best of the best. In fact, she was barely a pup in the grand scheme of things, especially compared to the monsters like Madara and Hashirama were going to be.

For now, Midori focused mainly on trying to stay alive.

With blood from one of the many cuts that littered what little skin wasn't armored, Midori unsealed a barrier tag from a seal on her bracer with a grunt and a sharp tug of chakra, so much chakra that she felt lightheaded, she trapped the shinobi behind a bubble of chakra. Once trapped the nin was trapped for at least a minutes, was equal to years of time in such a high pace fight, Midori ran to her teammates to help while unstrapping the armor from around her belly.

The bits of armor fell while she ran to Yuri first, and Midori swiped blood on her chakra seal to release a specific seal out of eight. It was the most dangerous seal she had ever created.

Nature chakra and her own chakra exploded through the seal, and from that seal, amazing things began to happen.

The seal's entire purpose was to enhance and convince every single cell in her body that it was something else. Four out of the eight prongs she had encircling her nature chakra storage seal were transformation seals, seals that had taken years of trial and error. Still, she only had one seal currently actually usable since the other three were more likely to kill her than help. Even the one she was using now, was not complete.

The seal allowed for lightning to course through every single cell in her body, and the nature chakra helped to convince each cell that it was made of lightning and not actual flesh. It was a last resort seal at the moment, taking too much chakra and too hard of a toll on her body to use for more than a minute.

From her seal, chakra seeped through her body and seemed to ooze ever so slowly through every single cell in her body. It wasn't quick, and it wasn't painless. Electric charged chakra oozed at what seemed to be the speed of molasses, and Midori could feel it as her entire body seemed to be changed.

Midori let out a scream of pain, vocal cords tearing with the force of her scream, and nearly dropped to her knees just ready to give from the torture the seal was causing her. However, it was over within seconds, though to Midori it had felt like an hour of torture, before she was left gasping for air and feeling like she was hyped up on more drugs than an overdosed junkie.

Yuri had fought a little harder, trying to get to her team leader, but Midori was up and running before Yuri could actually do anything.

Midori didn't even bother dodging the sticky, flammable syrup that had been shot at her from the kunoichi fighting Yuri. It would have taken time that Midori didn't actually have, especially when she didn't actually need to dodge. Her entire body had been transformed and each cell had been convinced it was actually made of lightning, so there wasn't actually much there to hit. Midori's body had an innate glow to it as the flaming syrup flew through her body, surprising everyone in the clearing.

"Don't touch my team!" Midori screamed while jumping forward, her hand piercing into the kunoichi who had been fighting Yuri.

The kunoichi gave a piercing scream, electricity coursing through her entire body and cooking her from the inside out even as Midori pulled her hand out of the woman's chest to run to Yuri's other attacker.

He quickly formed a mud wall and then another and another. Midori, too hyped up on chakra like she was, didn't even bother jumping over or around the mud walls but instead just ran right through them. She wasn't thinking straight, and instead of doing things smart she was doing things much harder. However, her tactless waste of energy didn't matter since she had enough momentum to body bash into the shinobi.

The shinobi flew a few dozen feet before rolling across the ground, dead and his body twitching from the residual electricity.

Midori turned to the shinobi attacking Itsui, and she ran as fast as she could, practically a glowing black shadow with red streaks from her hair that had escaped its confines and from the red scarf around her neck.

The enemy had caught up to Itsui in his desperation, having seen his two teammates die at Midori's hand, and gave a dark smirk before jumping back with a call, "Katsu!"

"Nooo!" Midori shrieked as she sped forward, her hand piercing through the enemy nin's neck too late to stop the explosion which blew half of Itsui's torso apart in a shower of gore. Yuri was screaming in the background and the enemy shinobi Midori had trapped under her barrier tag escaped.

"You fucking bitch!" He yelled out angrily, drawing Midori's attention, her eyes having been glued onto the dead form of her teammate.

Yuri had practically been handicapped by her previous fight, and she was too exhausted to fight off the last shinobi. He had taken advantage of Midori's shock and grief to attack and capture Yuri. He held a kunai to Yuri's neck and she tried struggling free without any results.

"Bitch, I was gonna kill you and be done with it, but now I wanna take my time torturing you! How dare you kill my team! Surrender or I'll slit this pretty kunoichi's throat!" He yelled out while facing Midori, eyeing his opponent carefully.

Midori clenched her fists and jaw tightly, she watched her enemy carefully while Yuri continued struggling. "Don't do it! Midori, don't you do anyth-" Yuri screamed out before she was cut off with a punch to her skull and a large hand began choking her. Yuri could do nothing as her vision doubled from an instant concussion and her air supply cut off.

"Surrender bitch, or her blood will be on your hands!" The shinobi shouted, growling darkly as he continued choking the young woman in his grip.

Yuri gasped as the grip around her neck was loosened enough to allow her to breathe, and as her vision cleared, she saw Midori kneeling on the ground to surrender. Midori had no chance of rescuing Yuri in a frontal charge, not with her time nearly completely run out with her transformation.

The shinobi stepped forward slowly, "Don't even think of moving, bitch." He warned as he kept a kunai against Yuri's neck. However, he quickly dropped her to the ground before getting even closer to Midori.

He kicked down with one leg, stopping Yuri in her tracks as she had tried crawling away, and a loud crack sounded from where he had stomped down.

Yuri screamed as he broke her leg without a second thought, before making a quick clone that pressed Yuri's head into the dirt ready to crush her skull. He stepped forward slowly, ninja wire ready to tie up Midori.

Once he was within five steps, Midori leapt forward with a powerful enough push to crack the ground beneath her feet as she propelled herself at her enemy. Then Midori's seal dissipated as she flew through the air at her enemy.

She glared harshly and growled out, "I would never leave my comrade behind." She brought her hand forward and with the last electrically charged chakra gathered into her finger tips, pierced through the breastbone of her enemy and pierced directly into his heart.

The clone dissipated into mud, covering Yuri's head and upper body which she pushed herself out of while clutching at her leg. Midori had fallen onto her victim, unmoving and nearly unconscious.

Too much chakra had gone through her body and so most of her body such as organ tissue, muscle tissue and even bone were torn or fractured. The seal might be able to convince her cells they were actually lightning, but it wasn't a smooth transition when her cells were suddenly flesh again once the chakra flow stopped. It hurt to move or even breath at this point for Midori, so she refused to move much at all.

Even her chakra coils were shot, having been pumped full of so much chakra that they had been stretched and then burnt out by the electricity.

Tears escaped her and she let out a tortured whimper as Midori rolled off the dead body of the shinobi, falling to his side. She cried harder as she brought her hand up to her belly once more to unlock the chakra seal and then dragged it across the prong to change that stored chakra into healing chakra. The seal was probably the most simple of all the seals she had created, as it was natural to be able to change regular chakra into its healing counterpart with only a bit of practice.

Her seal negated having to concentrate to manually change her chakra, and the seal just automatically changed the chakra that she was siphoning through. Midori was coaxing the last dregs of chakra she had stored in the main seal, the lightning transformation having been cut off when the amount of chakra reached ten percent, and simply had to use the last of her own chakra to guide the healing chakra to certain areas at a time instead of letting it run off on its own.

Having been practicing at the hospital to learn the various med-nin techniques, Midori was quite well versed in using healing chakra. She would be the first to admit that she wouldn't be curing poisons or diseases anytime soon, not knowing enough to do much, but she was experienced enough to coax her already existing cells to multiply with very quick cell mitosis. She didn't have enough building blocks or nutrients in her body to waste on fixing everything, so Midori focused on connecting and repairing bones and ligaments.

Once those were repaired, she used the last of any spare biological nutrients such proteins and carbohydrates to fix organs and muscles. However everything had just been a patch job, nothing she had worked on was actually completely repaired.

Midori couldn't help letting tears escape as it was so painful to even stand, but she managed to get to her feet only to walk a few yards to get to Itsui. Her teammate was dead, there was no way around that, and all Midori could do was pull a sealing scroll from her storage pouch and seal his remains. She drew a black band around either end of the scroll and labeled his name clearly on the front.

Picking herself up, Midori quickly sealed the remains of the five enemy shinobi into a separate scroll from Itsui before collecting her naginata and armor she had dropped earlier and walking to Yuri.

Yuri was crying silently, hands fisting the ground at her sides and she hadn't dared touching her leg which was bent and obviously broken right at the thigh. Midori unlocked her healing seal again, the seal having cut off the moment she stopped using the healing chakra like the seal had been designed for, and guided the aloe green chakra to Yuri's leg. With a twist, Midori had straightened Yuri's leg, causing the young woman to give out a cry of pain, before using the chakra to patch up the nasty break which had actually been a shattered thigh and knee cap.

Midori tore her scarf off from around her neck and used her tanto to help secure Yuri's leg and keep it immobile.

"Did you get Itsui?" Yuri asked, tears making lines down her face from where they cleaned up the dirt and blood on her cheeks.

"Yes, I did."

Yuri gave an exhausted grin, "Not talking in third person?"

Midori gave her teammate an equally exhausted grin back, "I think I'm a little too tired to be so polite right now. Let's get you up and on my back."

Yuri nodded while Midori helped her stand onto her one good leg before she frowned and tears flowed harder, "I want to go home Midori-chan." Yuri was crying while she fisted the fabric of Midori's top.

Midori nodded, "Ya, let's go." She squatted carefully and let Yuri get on her back. Midori gripped at her teammate carefully while Yuri wrapped her arms around Midori's neck and shoulders.

With a slow start, Midori started walking away from their battlefield. It took a few minutes before Midori had reached a tree line and she jumped up into the branches. She hopped smoothly from branch to branch, being careful not to disturb her passenger whose barely patched leg wouldn't allow for any sort of weight or pressure without shattering again.

Midori continued running through the trees for hours, not daring to actually stop even when it got dark. She already knew that she was travelling at a snail's crawl, because of how injured and exhausted she still was and how injured and exhausted Yuri was.

She wouldn't stop to heal herself again until she reached the safety of the Uzumaki village. Using the healing chakra took far too much concentration when she needed all her concentration to sensing for enemies. Even when she didn't have to convert her own chakra into healing chakra, just guiding it took far too much concentration than she was comfortable using when she had other people relying on her to stay alert.

Without stop, Midori ran through the rest of the day and night. At that point, her own chakra and nature chakra had been filtered into her stomach seal so she stopped to use a slow release attachment seal, the seventh of her eight total extra attachment seals. The nature chakra was so much more powerful than her own chakra, so she was given a major boost that energized her while using it fast enough not to even have the remotest risk of turning to stone.

With the extra boost from nature chakra mixed with her own chakra, Midori burst forward far faster than before.

Luckily, the extra boost from her nature chakra seal allowed Midori to outrun their pursuers who had been following a few hours after Midori and Yuri had left the battlefield.

Midori ran without stop until they came to the coast. Yuri had helpfully gotten out some ration bars for them to ear since Midori was using her hands to hold Yuri up on her back. Once on the coastline Midori sped across the sands, her footprints getting erased by the waves that splashed up onto the sand. She ran for over an hour across the beach until she saw a small Uzumaki owned port town.

The port town was one of two that the Uzumaki helped patrol and guard which earned the Uzumaki a protection free from both towns. Along with that, the small port towns had the few ships that could easily sail through the whirlpools because of specially designed seals. These ships were used mainly for trade and the occasional charter to and from Uzu.

Midori slowed down so she was walking as she stepped through one of the entrances into the village. "Yuri, my storage scroll has some money which we can pay for a charter to Uzu."

Yuri nodded and reached under her where she was actually almost sitting on Midori's supply pouch. She pulled out the scroll and unraveled it carefully until she came to the storage seal labeled "money."

"Just write in the amount of money in the blank space with blood and then use chakra to release it, I carry all the money in notes of one-thousand."

(A/N: 1000 ryo is about 100 US dollars)

Yuri nodded and released four-thousand ryo from the seal, enough to get a charter to Uzu.

Midori walked to the docks, and immediately walked to a group of joking sailors who were all laughing around while playing cards. "Excuse me, but we are looking to charter a skiff to Uzu as soon as possible." Midori looked up and saw the clouds moving in the opposite direction the winds closer to the ground were moving, "If we leave now, we could make it before a storm hits."

One of the sailors stood up, "Costs fifteen-hundred each."

"You get extra if you can get us to Uzu as fast as possible." Midori replied while Yuri handed three notes over while waving the fourth note from over Midori's shoulder.

The sailor nodded with a grin before waving Midori over to a specific ship. His boat was small, a skiff, and its sails were already unfurled. Midori jumped carefully onto the boat and set Yuri down into a seat before walking to the dock to untie the ship from the dock. The sailor stood at the wheel and helped guide the ship away while Midori jumped onto the deck.

The sailor seemed to understand the mood and stayed silent while catching as much wind as he was able to propel the skiff forward. The closer they got to home, the darker both Yuri and Midori's mood became. Yuri was fingering Itsui's body scroll, not having let it out of her sight the moment Midori had handed it over upon request.

The skiff sailed in and out of the whirlpools, the constant and almost violent up and down motion had both kunoichi using chakra to stick to their seats while the sailor had strapped himself to the wheel. However they seemed to only be sailing in choppy seas instead of the powerful whirlpools which were roaring loudly and dangerously. The seals on the keel of the boat were designed to reject the pulling and spinning power of the whirlpools so they were quite safe while in the ship, though they would be sucked down to the depths if they fell overboard.

It took only six hours to see the docks of Uzu, the tailwinds caused from the building storms speeding them along and cutting an eight hour journey down two hours.

Once they were docked, Midori helped Yuri onto her back again and paid the sailor the fourth thousand ryo note. She leapt forward to the clan head's office, and ignored all murmuring that followed her since it seemed that everyone noticed that Itsui was missing.

Yuri knocked politely onto the clan head's office door, since Midori's hands were full holding Yuri onto her back, and they waited a minute before being called in.

"Report." Uzumaki Saito said while he sat behind his desk dressed in fine silk robes going over a few other mission scrolls.

Midori gave a polite nod since she couldn't give a full bow while Yuri was on her back. "Sir, the mission was complete but it went FUBAR'ed before we started. Three children nearly compromised our position so we subdued without killing however one child let out a burst of chakra before being knocked unconscious. We continued the mission after disguising the three children and collected the mission objective before setting a genjutsu seal to disguise the theft." Yuri handed over the scroll which had the bowl in it but kept the scroll which they had used to seal everything else.

"We escaped without being caught but ran into a five man patrol team during our escape. They had some sort of internal kekkei genkei that had them sprinting much faster than we were capable of. We had more stamina so we could have outrun them if it was a matter of distance but they were able to overrun us in the short distance sprint. We killed them easily enough however reinforcements came before we could flee the scene. They were killed shortly thereafter and we sustained light injuries as well as coming out exhausted.

"We were headed back to Uzu when halfway, we came across another patrol team from some other clan who could spit flammable sticky syrup." Midori gestured for Yuri to pass over the scroll containing the five bodies of their enemies, "We were already exhausted and I was injured so we struggled during the battle. Yuri had gotten hurt a minute into the fight and so I put a barrier against the shinobi I was facing to activate a lightning conversion seal that I then used to defeat the two shinobi facing Yuri. The shinobi fighting Itsui had some sort of blood line that allowed him to explode whatever he touched and I ran to help him in his fight when he was killed by an explosion."

Yuri gripped the body scroll holding Itsui tighter before releasing it to stand it carefully on the clan head's desk and Midori gripped Yuri tighter against her back.

"I killed that shinobi however the one I had originally been fighting escaped the barrier and had subdued Yuri to use as a hostage while I was emotionally compromised by Itsui's death. From there, I surrendered to spare Yuri's life where the shinobi shattered Yuri's leg. I then killed him when he got close enough trying to tie me with ninja wire. After that, I helped patch Yuri's leg and made a nonstop trip back to Uzu."

The clan head was silent while Midori stood stiff, waiting for her verdict.

"The mission was accomplished even with Uzumaki Itsui's death and a funeral will be held in a week as is standard. Here is your mission payment." The red headed clan leader handed over a stack of bills he had stored in a drawer. "Check yourselves into the hospital for a check-up. Dismissed."

Midori carried Yuri carefully, her feet dragging in the ground as she made her way to the clinic. Once there, an Uzumaki checked them both over and Yuri's leg was set in plaster to keep it straight and hopefully so it wouldn't be broken again in its delicate state as Midori had only done a patch job. The doctors had more immediate cases they needed their attention on so Yuri and Midori were released quickly.

"I'm giving my share to Itsui's family." Midori stated while looking at Yuri, "Keep your share since you will be off the mission list for a few weeks or more because of your leg."

Yuri grit her teeth but nodded in understanding, "I'm going home. I don't want to be around when that pompous noble comes around for his stupid bowl." Yuri spit at the ground before turning around to head home while hobbling on her crutches.

Midori turned to Itsui's home and family house before heading there as quick as she could lift her aching feet.

She was covered in blood and cuts, her clothes were torn and her armor dented and scratched up in places. Her hair was a frightful mess and she probably stunk to high heaven. Midori had bags under her eyes from not sleeping well for the first half of her mission and then not sleeping at all as she fled with Yuri across the continent back to Uzu.

All in all, she was an exhausted, frightful, stressed out mess. Midori was also personally going to see Itsui's family and give her condolences. Once at Itsui's family home, she knocked politely and was ushered into the sitting room to wait while Itsui's parents and wife came out.

Midori swallowed heavily at the sight of Itsui's wife who was heavily pregnant with Itsui's second child, the first who Midori had babysat only twice since she had been highly uncomfortable near small children and was only needed since no one else could watch the small babe.

Looking at Itsui's family, Midori could already tell they understood that something had gone wrong on the mission. With tears dripping down her face, Midori prostrated herself in front of the family with her forehead pressed flat against the ground in dogeza and with the money earned from the mission pushed out in front of her. "I must give my condolences. I was not strong enough to save Itsui and his death is on my hands. The clan head, Saito-sama, is currently in possession of Itsui's body and the only reparation I can give is the mission earnings as Itsui-san can no longer help provide for his family."

Midori was crying into the floor silently.

"I am sorry I could not bring him back alive."

Itsui's family was crying and Midori could hear Itsui's wife getting up to leave, weeping and wailing out her distress. Midori stayed with her face to the ground until a hand touched her shoulder.

"Thank you for bringing his body back." Spoke Itsui's father, tears shining visibly in his eyes though he was too proud to allow them to fall in front of a non-family member. Midori stood up and gave a deep bow before leaving quickly, heading home to throw the scroll full of loot from the mission in the corner of her room to sort later.

Midori scowled darkly as she untied her armor and put it in a pile on the ground outside near her smithing area so it would be repaired later. With a quick bath, cleaning and using plenty of a nice muscle-relaxant cream that helped to sooth sore muscles as well as helping keep any scars elastic instead of stiff. She braided wet hair so it wouldn't get tangled, and shuffled off to her room as quick as a zombie to collapse in bed.

Clutching one of her stuffed tigers like a small child, Midori fell asleep crying.


	23. Chapter 23

(Fifteen Years Old)

Midori and a group of special chishio (blood) clones were all working on her nodachi.

They were keeping the fires hot, too hot to actually be near without a protective coating of chakra, and they were constantly having to replace the cooling water since Midori was dunking the blade in the water so often it began boiling from the heat. The blade was being made from chakra conductive metal, titanium, and tungsten carbide giving the blade a silver, dark silver, and blue-silver colored metals. She had been working on the sword without pause for five days and didn't plan on stopping until it was finished because stopping in the middle of the process would ruin the blade.

Midori wanted a nice round number for the amount of folds that she was making in the long blade, wanting some sort rounded number however 100 was a bit too small Midori had thought, so she chose 1,000 for the folds. Tungsten had a melting point of 2,870 C° (5,198 F°) so Midori was making tungsten as the core and back of the blade however she had been forced to mix and melt the chakra conductive metal with the tungsten so the blade conducted chakra easily without ever having a chance of breaking or snapping.

She had folded the metal so many times that the only reason she had kept count was because a clone was counting and marking on a chalkboard. From there, Midori had folded titanium and chakra conductive metal together to form what would be the edge and tip. She and a clone hammered the two parts to the sword while another clone hammered a very thin copper rod that would go between the two folded metals. The titanium edge was shaped carefully so the edge would be easier to sharpen and the back that would fit to the tungsten was shaped with hundreds of little prongs that were very, very carefully shaped on both sides of the back of the edge. The tungsten back was shaped smoothly and the part that would fit against the titanium edge was very, very carefully smaller with hundreds of small prongs like the edging.

The copper 'wire' was fit carefully between the titanium and tungsten parts, and the hundreds of prongs, counted exactly to 1,000 like the amount of folds that both the titanium and tungsten edge and back had gone through. The blade was fit together ever so carefully, and the thousands of prongs, totaling to four-thousand tiny hair-like prongs, were carefully and delicately weaved together with chakra coated hands before being hammered into shape. Heating the blade one more time had the copper wire melting from in-between the blade and back, and the holes purposely created in the tungsten carbide back all the way from the tip of the blade to the tang allowed for the copper to drip out without the rest of the blade melting since both the tungsten and titanium had a much, much higher melting point.

In a normal sword, the holes would stress the integrity of the blade causing it to shatter too easily, but Midori had used tungsten carbide with chakra conductive metal which allowed for the blade to be nearly indestructible.

During the entire process, Midori had also been pouring her chakra into the blade. Being a constant open conduit to chakra from a clone, which was eating and popping chakra pills like mad, stressed her chakra coils almost beyond what they could handle especially after the stress when she had used her lightning transformation seal. Along with her chakra, not using nature chakra during the process, Midori had bled all over the blade at multiple points during the smithing. During the weaving of the four-thousand prongs, Midori had also weaved a thousand strands of her long red hair into the metal mesh.

It had taken hours and hours to even heat up the oven enough to soften tungsten enough to actually begin working with, and Midori had to get a clone to run to an actual smithy to buy dozens of bags of charcoal and wood chips to help fuel the fires. The clay oven had actually begun melting from the heat so Midori had been forced to draw seals on the oven to turn the heat back into the oven so nothing dissipated at all and the oven didn't melt.

From there, once the oven was hot enough, Midori had spent days and days to hammering out her nodachi. It was complete on the fifth day, having been working nonstop and without pause save for something small to eat or using the bathroom while the blade reheated.

Another two clones had been creating a simple tanto and katana pair that would be gifted to Itsui's family while Midori had been working on her nodachi. The blades were simple chakra conductive metal mixed with leftover titanium chips that had been layered onto the blade to give it a dragon scale appearance once the chips had been folded individually dozens of times and carefully shaped into scales and the chakra conductive metal had also been folded and carefully shaped. The two blades had been finished and placed carefully in completed scabbards and silk wrapped handles long before Midori had finished with her nodachi.

Once the blade was finished, Midori painted the scabbard which had been carved out by a clone, and painted a weave pattern all the way down the black scabbard with silver paint while lining the thick silver lines with dark silver-blue to highlight the weaves. The black paint of the sheath shown out from between the silver and silver-blue creating a beautiful contrast that highlighted a simplistic beauty. The silk wrap of both the handle and the cord around the scabbard had been dyed black while the various ornaments including the kashira and tsuba were a dark-silver color having been made from melted titanium.

Midori crashed halfway through painting the scabbard so one of her clones finished the job before giving it a strong lacquer so the paint wouldn't be damaged or peeled. Then a seal was added so the scabbard couldn't get damaged or destroyed while the same seal was added to the handle of the nodachi since it wasn't nearly as indestructible as the blade. However, dozens of seals were added to blade with careful brush strokes that would make the blade something of an elite blade like the Seven Swords of the Mist. The blade was already sporting a budding sentience, much like Samehada would be sentient, and the clones made sure to coax that sentience into life by painting dozens and dozens of seals that would eventually allow the blade to do various special actions as well as choose its wielder should Midori ever die.

Midori was snoring loudly in her room, a sheet draped over the fuuton so none of the soot or sweat stained her fuuton as she hadn't been able to wash up before crashing half-unconscious. Kikyou and Ukitake were keeping an eye on their daughter, worried for her as they had heard about the death of Itsui, and they were worried how she had stayed up for five days working on a blade. For five days, all they had heard was the loud clanging of metal striking metal, and it had been a fast repetitive clanging noise as Midori had been using chakra to speed up her strikes along with the copious amount of chakra that had been siphoned into what Midori had been creating. The only way for Kikyou to help was making calorie heavy meals which a blood clone ate along with Midori for the energy to be converted into chakra.

Kikyou had also helped by grinding the chakra pills into the food, carefully regulating the supply of pills so Midori didn't go into a coma from overdose, which was easy since most people got the shakes after using three chakra pills and a four to fifth pill would cause a person's body to shut down. Kikyou had carefully counted out the pills Midori and her blood clone had eaten, carefully only allowing a certain number a day along with all the food the two had eaten to keep up the near constant chakra output.

Now, Kikyou was helping wipe down Midori's limbs and change her from the soot stained yukata into something cleaner. She had then made more snacks which could be eaten once her daughter awoke from her exhausted sleep.

Ukitake was watching Midori's clones work even when Midori was knocked out, and he watched as they began cleaning up though the oven would have to wait since it was too hot to do anything with save let it cool slowly so the oven didn't crack. The clones scurried around like busy little ants, each with their own job and purpose until one by one the clones began popping. They either dispelled in a small tub as they popped into pools of blood, or they dispelled themselves in the flower bushes as they popped into a puddle of water. The last two clones left didn't dispel but instead they began working on repairing Midori's armor and repainting over the scuff marks so the armor shone like new.

Over fifteen hours after Midori crashed, she awoke with a growling stomach and an insistent need to use the restroom. After using the bathroom to do her business and taking a quick bath, changing into clothes that Kikyou had set out, Midori set upon any and all food available like a ravenous beast. Manners were set aside for trying to eat as fast as possible from everything that was in reach.

Calorie heavy foods that had been set out were gobbled up quickly until barely any crumbs were left from the large banquet that had been set out. "Thanks haha-ue, that was really good, thank you."

"You're welcome, Midori-chan. Now, go get clean again and get dressed, I can still see soot in your hair."

Midori blushed and gave a nod of acknowledgement, "Of course, haha-ue." Midori slipped from the dining room and took another bath, making sure to scrub her hair enough times so the water ran clear without any traces of soot. Once she was sure she was clean, Midori dressed in a simple yukata before making her way to her room where the three new blades were waiting to be named.

The blades had been sharped while Midori was asleep, and so now all Midori needed to do was paint the three blade's names on their scabbards and etched into the blade.

A diamond cutter was used to etch the names of the blades into the titanium scales of the katana and tanto along with the tungsten carbonite of the nodachi. The tanto was named Gyorin meaning fish scales, the katana was named Ryu-uroko meaning dragon scales, and Midori's nodachi was named Issen Amimasu meaning One-Thousand Weaves. She etched the names of each blade onto the flat of either side of each blade, and painted the names of each blade onto the scabbards in silver ink for the plain black scabbards of Gyorin and Ryu-uroko but in black ink onto one of the thick silver lines of the painted scabbard of Issen Amimasu.

With a quick use of a lacquer to protect the newly painted names on the scabbards, Midori sat back and admired her work. Once she finished inspecting each blade, Midori set up some practice posts by rolling up old tatami mats and gave a simple chakra-less slash with the tanto. There was barely any resistance as she cut through the rice straw mats, three in one row, and an inspection of the blade showed no sort of damage or wear at all from the cut. A trial with the katana showed the same craftsmanship with no wear or damage at all to the blade or edge.

Midori gripped get her nodachi, saving it for last, and gave a blissful sigh as the chakra infused within the blade resonated with her own chakra like two instruments playing in harmony. Midori gave a swing, the blade seemed to hum in her hands as she cut through the air and through the three tatami mats fast enough to blur the blade in front of her eyes. She then resheathed the blade without the tatami mats having even moved. With a smirk, Midori only had to wait a few seconds for a wonderfully timed breeze to blow over the cut mats.

Midori unsheathed her nodachi to check for any damage and smiled when the blade shone as though it had never been used before. She checked over the holes, pouring a chakra into the blade so each hole venting a bit of chakra, and the whole blade lit up with energy. With a swing, the blade sung in her hands with a harmonic whistle, and a wave of chakra was released without any harm to the blade as the chakra flowed smoothly through the folded metals and any excess was spilled into the inner tube that went all the way down the blade. She resheathed Issen Amimasu with only the bare whisper of wood on metal before it clicked home.

The sword was taller than she was by half a foot, all the height including the blade and hilt. She was only five foot three inches, and she knew that she was not quite yet finished growing. Everyone she had ever met was taller than five foot five, so Midori expected to grow at least a few more inches. Her blade was tall enough that even when shoulder to opposite hip while across her back, the hilt stuck more than a few inches above her head while dragging on the ground. So, Midori would be forced to carry the blade on one shoulder, comfortably looping her arm over the scabbard so the blade rested securely on her collarbone.

Midori went back inside and went to her four instruments and chose the koto to sit down and practice with. It had been weeks since she last sat down and played music, she was so busy with training all the time than any of her free time was then relegated to creating her ink paintings to bring in money for her smithing projects. As she didn't sell any of her blades, though she had only begun successfully making swords and other weaponry for a short time, the metals cost more money than she could spare with just mission pay. So, to pay for all the metals she had used, which most of it had been scrapped in the hundreds of trials trying to create different blades, she spent a lot of her time creating paintings that were in high demand especially depending on the theme which caused either the civilians to snap up the work or shinobi.

Relaxing, Midori began by tuning her instrument before actually playing anything. The strings were tightened or loosened depending on the exact pitched Midori wanted, and then she began playing without thought to an already written piece. Free style was something she enjoyed, however she hadn't quite ever actually written anything down as any time she played free style, she never quite finished one melody before jumping to another.

She hummed along for an hour, playing to her hearts content while her Kikyou and Ukitake sat nearby with tea in hand. They listened to the music, sometimes calm and sometimes sad, but it was soothing nonetheless. Midori was playing to relax, messing up frequently as she hadn't played in a while and it took a bit for her fingers to dig into the muscle memory related to music. However she was enjoying herself.

As Midori played, she thought about her previous life. As a college student, she had skated by with high grades without doing nearly any studying. She had been highly intelligent but hadn't had any sort of work ethic to actually go far. She had also constantly tried bending the rules, hating that she had to follow orders since her father had been a military officer and brought his military attitude, an attitude that meant everyone had to jump at his command without complaint, home with him and expected an introvert daughter to follow his commands. They hadn't gotten along well at all, and her attitude of hating to follow commands given by some sort of military officer had carried over into her new life though she hid it well.

Truthfully, she hated having to jump to the tune of the clan head but she did it anyways since Midori knew she wasn't yet strong enough to survive without the backing of her clan. What helped was that her new father, Uzumaki Ukitake, wasn't strict and with such a harsh patriarchal mindset though the habits of the society were already ingrained in both her parents for them to consciously try deciding they wanted to escape their roles.

Midori would continue to jump through hoops like a well-trained dog for her clan, and she would keep her dissatisfaction to herself like she had always done (though she suspected her father knew of her different mindset since he didn't dare treat her like some other fathers treated their children) and wait till she was strong enough to leave. Midori had also thought of exactly how she wanted to leave her clan. She didn't want to become a missing nin, since they were always hunted by everyone, but instead wanted to maybe fake her death. Midori didn't think she would get the political clout to be able to walk away from her clan like that one medic lady.

With a pause in her music, Midori thought a little harder trying to remember that name, _'Ahh, Tsunade. That's her name.'_ Midori thought to herself. It had been years since she had last actually read the manga Naruto, fifteen years to be exact, and it didn't surprise her that she was forgetting names of different characters. The main ones she truly remembered were Naruto (obviously since the manga was named after him), Kakashi (because she had always thought him pretty badass though not the strongest character), the four main Uchiha (Madara, Obito, Itachi, and Sasuke), and Kaguya (she just looked so elegant with her kimono and those bunny ears) with her creepy son Zetsu. Other than those names, the characters had started to blur together and she hadn't gone over her notes in years.

She had chosen, all those years ago, not to stress over the details of the manga and to not stress over her future. Instead, she had chosen to focus on one goal and that was to find a way to live long enough to actually make a difference. Midori had known that if she had stressed over every single detail of how exactly she was going to change the plotline, she would neglect actually living.

Itsui had been a good comrade, and she had distanced herself from her teammates as Midori had known they all might die one day. It hurt, it hurt so bad that her closest friend had died. Because no matter how hard she had tried distancing herself from everyone, her teammates had still wiggled their way into her heart.

Tears dripped down her face as she remembered all the fun times with her friend and teammate. Midori gave a choked laugh as she remembered a time when he and Yuri had been out training with her when Itsui had fallen in a pit of mud. Yuri had laughed and laughed right up to the point that Itsui had thrown a glob of mud that smacked into Yuri's face. Those two had squabbled and wrestled in the mud, trying to shove the slimy stuff down the back of each other's shirts and pants up until the point that Midori had used a jutsu to create a tidal wave of mud that completely covered her two teammates in the stuff. They had both stopped in shock, completely drenched in mud, before turning on her and trying to splatter Midori with mud. Their sensei had come back from checking with the clan head and had seen all three of them covered in mud.

Midori smiled a bit through her tears, remembering other fun times with Itsui, and she promised to look after his kids until they were strong enough to look after themselves. She practiced a bit more until she grew tired of playing, and went out to practice a bit with her new nodachi, Issen Amimasu.


	24. Chapter 24

(Sixteen Years Old)

Midori sighed, gripping her nodachi tightly to her shoulder. The team had split up after Itsui's funeral. Hisane had been given a new position in the Uzumaki clan as a guard to the clan head and Yuri had retired for now since she had married and had gotten pregnant. While they were stuck around the village most of the time, Midori had been fast tracked through the assassin and seduction group, of which there were only six other kunoichi out of the fourteen members.

While the clan was small enough that everyone knew everyone's name, it wasn't small enough that there weren't different divisions and specialties. The clan had maybe a thousand members total, and half of those were civilians. The other half consisted of shinobi from the ages of training students to the older generation who hobbled around on canes and hunched backs. The multiple divisions consisted of the obvious sealing division who specialized in seals and kept the island safe with the barrier seal, the clan guards who hung around guard the main branch and the clan head, the less obvious Intel division, the demolition division, genjutsu division, and assassination and seduction division.

However each division only had around twenty members total, the rest of the Uzumaki shinobi took regular missions and focused on flashy ninjutsu.

Midori had been picked up by the seduction and assassination division as soon as she hit sixteen. The clan head had put an age requirement for this division as no one would have approved of sending children on seduction missions and hard core assassinations. Don't get her wrong, she had done assassinations before along with sabotage and other types of stealth missions, however she hadn't ever gone on long undercover missions or missions that required her to know her target before the assassination. All her previous targets, few that there had been, had truly been platforms for which her division separated the wannabe's from the talent.

Right now, she was hanging around the lounge for her division, where some of the others were hanging around enjoying themselves. Midori hadn't seen her parents in months, having been specially trained and gone on dozens of supervised missions with the different high ranking members of her division. Midori's first seduction mission, which had really been a training mission, had been with an ally clan and so she had secretly seduced her target and 'killed' him. Luckily, she had her first sexual experience be with one of her new team members so her first time wasn't out on the field.

She had gone through dozens of training sessions, taught to her by different teachers, and they had all been halfway to mortifying until she learned to deal. The training methods her division used were not anything she would have ever thought of as actual training. She was introduced to three partners, two males and female, and she was required to have sex with them. One memorable time was when she was having sex with one male and her three trainers (all higher ranked members of the division) were standing and sitting around the bed telling her how exactly she should be moving for the role she was playing. She had been blushing fiercely as the two older women actually began helping her to move a certain way on her male partner while also giving tips to doing other sexual things.

Midori had trained for months, unable to leave the training facility which was located underground, and either spent time under the supervision of trainers during physical training, during sexual training, plain seduction training, and assassination training. They had her practicing to act like a maiko, a geisha, a whore, a miko, a common civilian, and a dozen other roles which also included the roles she would act in when offered to share a bed. This also included how she should act if she was required to have sexual relations with multiple people which could or could not include her target. They had also spent a week on pain tolerance, getting her used to physical violence during sex and for torture if she was found out. They had also put her through copious amounts of emotional conditioning so her psyche couldn't have the chance of fracturing while on missions.

Now, Midori was waiting for her first true mission, one where she wasn't seducing a target from an ally village so there was no chance of actually getting hurt if she was found out. She was going to get a mission with a potential enemy target. Luckily, it would be a civilian mark so she didn't have much chance of getting hurt too badly compared to a shinobi if she were to be found out.

"Your name for this mission will be Nakagawa Sayuri, you are required to seduce the target, one Takemoto Hirotada. The wife wishes to have proof of illicit affairs so she can get out of the marriage by showing the proof to her family."

Midori gave a short bow to Uzumaki Ichizo, the commander of the small seduction and assassination division, and took the mission scroll from his outstretched hand.

"When you are finished with your mission, you have a second mission that Intel points will be in the area." Ichizo handed Midori another scroll. "A wealthy civilian will be traveling to the area and you are to seduce and then assassinate your target."

Midori gave another bow and took the scroll from her commander, "Yes sir." She didn't even bother feeling annoyed by being ordered around, her feelings on getting ordered around had been found out by her trainers and it had been nearly beat out of her. Luckily, she had retained her sense of defiance but now it was carefully hidden beneath layers and layers of obedience, especially because she had twenty years of disobedience to fall back on from her previous life.

Quickly, Midori ran to her room in the division's facility and sealed her armor in a seal on her wrist which then disappeared. The seal on her stomach had already been invisible for all of her training because she hadn't wanted anyone seeing it and trying to decipher it which was what the eighth and final component of the branched seals did. She sealed anything else that she thought might be needed and ran out of the building wearing a gorgeous blue kimono with red flower blossoms all along the sleeves and bottom edge with a plain red obi with simple wave patterned stitching. Her hair had been transformed with a hidden seal at the nape of Midori's neck from the bright red into a silky black that fit well with her normal hime cut.

Being a ninja, it was fairly easy to run in geta, so she didn't bother actually putting on proper shinobi footwear. She ran across the waters surrounding Uzu, easily just jumping over each whirlpool with diameters of at least a hundred yards, and made it to the mainland in six hours. Midori ran for a few more hours before slowing down and unsealing her shanshin (a three stringed instrument), a flute which she stuck in her obi, and a backpack which she had stuffed with a few changes of clothes though her kimonos were sealed away so they wouldn't be crinkled or ruined by accident. She only had to walk for an hour, before entering a large enough town that a few nobles lived there.

Her target, Takemoto Hirotada, was supposedly an upstanding member of the higher class here in this town. Now, all Midori needed to do was seduce herself into Hirotada's bed. Hopefully she could finish the mission in time to relax before her assassination.

Takemoto Hirotada was already walking around with his wife, Takemoto Fumika, and they were surrounding by a contingency of samurai guards and servants. The two were sampling foods from different vendors and buying expensive trinkets that probably could pay for the food of an entire village feast. Midori watched her target carefully and went over to a geisha house where she knew she could pay for a night and not get harassed.

"How long are you staying here?" The matron asked politely and looked carefully at Midori who knew she had dust on the bottom edge of her kimono and covering her black painted geta.

"Only a few days, onna." Midori replied easily enough, "I can pay in coin now if needed."

The old woman nodded and realized that Midori must travel to travel and not because she was poor though it looked like she wasn't wearing an overly expensive kimono. "It will be five-hundred ryo a night." Midori nodded and fished out a few bills from her purse which had been stuck in her obi.

"Here you go, have a pleasant evening." Midori said while handing over the money with a well-practiced smile, fake to her but caused the old woman to blush a bit from the positive attention from a very, very beautiful young woman.

The woman smiled demurely back and handed Midori a key to a room which Midori set off towards wanting to change and go out to spy on her target. Once inside the room, she locked the door and set a chair under the door handle so it couldn't be forced open. With a quick change, Midori changed into a simple black yukata top, black pants, black gloves, and tied her hair beneath a handkerchief. With booted feet, Midori leapt from her room's window onto the roof of another building and proceeded to locate her target.

He was still in the market place with his wife and guards, so Midori hung around and watched his actions carefully. She watched for hours and followed him carefully even when he went home.

For three more days, Midori carefully noted his exact type and took pictures of the three woman that Hirotada brought into his home. Each woman left the next day carrying some cash and some sort of trinket that looked expensive but was fake and cheap.

On the fourth day, Midori got dressed in a beautiful kimono with just enough makeup to highlight her face but not caked on like young maikos. She put on white powder for her face, some pink on her cheeks, painted her eyelids dark purple, and painted her lips a bright red. Midori then began twisting up her hair in a decorative display while adding simple but beautiful pins such as a black comb with purple flowers, a few black pins decorated with more purple flowers, and a flower arrangement that had a few dangling bits of silver that jangled delicately. Then she put on the various layers of her furisode. The outer layer was black with white vines creeping up from all edging stitched with more purple flowers, the obi was simple purple with large flower outlines in white, and her zori were plain black. However, all of her clothes and even the hair ornaments were slightly scuffed as if she were struggling for money.

Midori made her way downstairs with her flute in her obi but found a koto in a roofed garden attached to the geisha house. Modori sat demurely behind the large instrument and began playing intricate pieces that attracted a fair few other men and women to sit around listening politely while drinking tea as she played. Around noon, Midori took a break to eat something and let her fingers rest as she had been playing for a few hours. Around one, she began playing again until she saw her mark walking by the garden with his guards like he did every day after lunch. It was around dinner that he walked around with his wife to show her off like some sort of trophy while spending wealth frivolously.

He nudged a guard, his captain, and pointed to Midori as she played on the koto. Midori didn't bother using chakra to try overhearing their conversation knowing who exactly the man was pointing to, and continued playing without pause. A few meiko giggled at the noble as he stood out on the road clearly looking in on the various geisha that were sitting around the koto player.

Midori played for a few more hours before stopping around dinner. She put away her pick and smoothly stood up from where she had been kneeling behind the large instrument. Dinner was simple, some rice and some fish, but she was given a written note by a young girl just beginning her meiko training.

"Thank you, girl." Midori stated politely while she tucked the note away in her obi. She finished the meal and then looked at the note indicating she was asked for by a costumer up at the front desk.

Midori put away her dishes and took carefully delicate and measured steps up to the front where the captain of Hirotada's guard stood waiting patiently.

"You wished to see me, sir?" Midori asked politely.

"Yes, ma'am, I was asked if you would play at Lord Takemoto's home tonight. You will be paid handsomely for your time."

Midori gave a polite nod, "Do you wish for me to bring an instrument?"

The guard shook his head, "The Lord Takemoto has a koto that can be brought out for you if you wish."

Midori stepped forward and politely placed her arm on the guard's when it had been offered to guide her to the Lord's home. They walked through the streets and more than a few people looked at her form and stopped what they were doing as they passed. Midori gave a cute little smile, hidden by the sleeve of her furisode, as she saw one man run into a wall and a few others accidentally dropping food from chopsticks into their laps as they walked passed a restaurant.

Once she was inside the massive building that made up the Takemoto home, she was guided to a large and expensive koto that sat in a corner of a large room where Hirotada was already sitting and sipping on tea.

Midori gave the lord a polite bow before sitting behind the koto and playing a gentle but intricate tune. He conversed politely, which Midori's opinion of him went down since he just seemed stupid every single time he spoke. Midori held in a sneer as she could practically see his tongue wagging at the chance of bedding such a beautiful woman no matter that geisha weren't whores. Spending time spying on the man, Midori knew that he offered plenty of money for some poorer geisha to have sex with him since some geisha couldn't support themselves because of varying circumstances.

"And may I ask for your name, my lady?" Hirotada asked while nibbling on some snacks while Midori continued playing the koto.

"Nakagawa Sayuri, my lord."

"Such a pretty name. I have an offer if you would hear it, Sayuri-san."

Midori gave a bow, "Of course Takemoto-dono."

"I see that you seem to be struggling financially, Sayuri-san, I am offering you money for a favor."

Midori could practically see him trying to hide his erection which was obvious because he constantly shifted in his seat and certain times she could see a slight tenting in his hakama pants. Midori forced herself to blush (various body reactions such as blushing had been trained until she could control such actions consciously), as though mortified that her financial standing had been found out, "I-I, I don't know-"

Hirotada interrupted her, "Just a favor, I would love to spend the night with such a beautiful woman such as yourself, and I will give you enough money so that you can continue on your way without troubles."

Midori forced her blush to darken and said, "I can't accept, Takemoto-dono."

Hirotada obviously didn't like getting turned down but gave a fake smile, "I am willing to pay you ten-thousand ryo if you accept the offer, along with a gift of your choice."

With careful acting, Midori showed as though she were teetering on the edge of accepting Hirotada's generous offer.

He interrupted again after seeing such obvious queues, "If you leave, I will still give you a thousand ryo, but if you stay a little longer in the morning, I will give you fifteen-thousand ryo."

Midori gave a few more nervous looking facial queues while 'thinking' over his offer before nodding slowly while blushing, "I have been struggling for a while now, Takemoto-dono, I accept your generous offer."

He gave a grin hidden behind his teacup before standing up and walking over to Midori, "Come Sayuri-chan, I assure you that you will enjoy tonight." He grabbed at Midori's outstretched hand and carefully guided her to a room containing a large bed.

That night was boring beyond belief for Midori. She had been trained in various sexual acts every night for months, that didn't include all the physical training, stealth, assassination, and acting that she had done along with practicing with her instruments, various tea ceremonies, dancing with and without various instruments such as a fan or parasol, and practicing her fuinjutsu and practicing with Issen Amimasu. Hirotada unrobed her, then finished himself off within a minute. Midori was disgusted and was quite happy that she had a seal that killed everything that entered her body so such things as viruses, bacteria, and every single sperm cell which entered her body. This meant that any man could unload themselves, even with the high sperm count of shinobi, and she would never get pregnant unless she allowed it and she would never get any sort of sexually transmitted disease.

Midori faked looking pleasantly sexed out, 'having enjoyed herself' and waited until Hirotada was asleep before creating a clone that quickly used a normal henge to go find Lady Takemoto Fumika.

Midori faked sleeping until, after hearing a whole minute of angry stomping of three sets of footsteps, 'startled' awake at the sound of the shoji doors slamming open and Fumika screeching, "I knew it! Father, here's your proof!"

Hirotada had also started away and was scrambling around trying to collect his clothes while Midori acted mortified and held the sheets of the bed against her naked chest. "Who are you?!" Midori squeaked out, acting shocked and surprised.

"I am this man's wife! Who are you?!"

Midori gave out a squeak and forced the blood from her face, going pale, before looking at the man she had sex with. "You didn't say you were married! You used me like some common whore!" And Midori burst into tears, all fake of course but none of these civilians would ever be able to detect it.

From that point, Fumika's father and his guard collected her husband to deal with him while Fumika felt sorry for the young girl crying her eyes out. "Don't cry, we'll deal with him and you'll get your justice."

Midori continued crying and blubbering until the three males were well out of hearing distance, before stopping completely. Fumika was shocked that a pretty young teen could just stop crying all of the sudden. "Well, Lady Takemoto, you got your proof of your husband's infidelity. I am the Uzumaki that was sent for your mission."

Fumika was shocked while Midori casually put on her furisode, uncaring that she had been naked in the first place with sticky cum drying on her inner thighs. "Well, thank you for your prompt completion of the mission. I had only sent out the letter with payment a week ago."

"Yes ma'am, and now I should be going, I have another mission in the area and need to prepare." Midori gave a bow before turning to leave.

"Wait! What did my husband promise you?"

Midori stopped and turned with an upraised eyebrow, "Fifteen thousand ryo if I stayed till morning and a gift of my choice."

Fumika nodded, "Take his collection, I don't want it nor need it. It sits in his rooms and there should be enough money around his room to give you a bonus for dealing with my husband so quickly."

Midori gave a bow, "Thank you Takemoto-dono." Midori left after that, making her way to Hirotada's private rooms. There a whole slew of ornaments, clothes, and other artifacts were sitting around cluttering a second room. Midori took everything she was able, sealing it all away, before leaving the massive manor.

Ten thousand ryo = 1000$

Fifteen thousand ryo = 1500$

1\. Lightning Full-Body Transformation

2\. Water Full-Body Transformation

3\. Fire Full-Body Transformation

4\. Wind Full-Body Transformation

5\. Kestrel Full-Body Transformation

A. 1 hour

B. 5 hours

C. 12 hours

6\. Healing Chakra Transformation

7\. Slow Release (To fill chakra reserves when empty)

8\. Makes All Body Seals Invisible Even When in Use


	25. Chapter 25

(16 Years Old)

Midori quickly went to the geisha house and collected her stuff. After that, she went to a normal hotel to shower and sleep for a few hours. In the morning, Midori dressed in a simple grey yukata with checkered patterns and zori sandles before leaving to find an actual whore house. Her next mark, Yakasaki Seitaro, was a wealthy man who enjoyed using the brothels in every place he went. He was wealthy enough to pay for the use of the entire brothel he visited which ensured no one could enter and he could have guards patrolling the entire building.

Quickly, Midori found the only brothel in the town and used stealth to put a mild and non-lethal poison in the cups of six different girls.

She only had to wait a day, scoping out the brothel for the six girls to call in to the matron as sick and unable to work.

That was when she pounced on the opportunity.

"What can I do for you, girl?"

Midori turned to an old woman, dressed conservatively but her face was covered in makeup. "I was hoping to find some work for a while."

"Do you have any experience girl?"

"Yes ma'am."

The old woman nodded, "Head to the back room, I'll check you over there."

Midori gave a short bow before heading off to where she was supposed to be. Under her yukata, on the skin of her chest, was a genjutsu seal that drew up a fake tattoos over her body. Her front had a massive koi fish splashing from her left hip up to where its head resting on her right breast and water decorated the skin around the fish that was then dotted with sakura blossoms. On her back, coiling its tail around her right thigh and clawing up her buttocks with hind claws all the way up to biting at her left shoulder blade was a large stripped tiger with more decorative sakura blossoms.

The matron came soon after with another girl, "Undress, I want to see."

Midori nodded, knowing that this was a test to see if she was at all shy which most women and girls were if they hadn't ever worked in a brothel before, and untied the obi to let her yukata fall to the ground. Standing naked, the old woman pinched and prodded, uncaring of every time her bony fingers caused Midori to wince. The girl, who seemed young so Midori assumed she had been born to one of the workers, helped to pick up Midori's clothes before setting them to the side after careful folding.

"Well, it seems like you're in luck, we had few girls get sick with food poisoning yesterday and we're running short on workers while an important client is visiting and plans to hire out the place. You seem prettier than most of my girls here so you will work every single night, so as long as you bring in men and their coin, you get paid along with free meals and a warm bed to sleep in. Rules of the house is no complaints, no whining, and the costumer is always right. You do as your costumer says even if he tells you to get on your knees and beg like a dog. Do you have any lines you're unwilling to cross?"

Midori shook her head, "No, ma'am."

"So any sort of bondage is alright? We have a few bouncers as we don't approve of hurting or disfiguring any of the girls working here so you just need to call for help. Men come in a pay to sleep with the girls, you keep a quarter of the money along with any tips they give you. Food and lodging is already deducted by the three quarters of the fee. Any accessories including bathing supplies, make-up, hair pins, clothes, or anything else that tickles your fancy other than your first kimono comes out of your pocket. If you get pregnant, you will get the chance to either keep the babe which puts you off work until the babe is born, or you take a cup of black root tea to get rid of any growing spawn. Do you understand everything?"

Midori could only nod at the old woman's long winded and grouchy speech.

The old woman turned to the girl standing at her side, "Snap to it, girl, get that silver one! Don't just stand around like a lazy bum! Do your job!"

"Yes Madam Akoto-san!" The small girl raced from the room and soon came back carrying a simple kimono colored a shimmering silver with dark brown tree branches crawling up from the edges peppered with little red sakura blossoms. Midori suspected it had been grabbed since the sakura blossoms matched the ones that had been 'tattooed' on her skin. The girl helped fit it on, making sure that it was opened enough that Midori's breasts were practically hanging out and that the cloth just covered over the fork of her legs. A red obi, more of a band than any proper sort of obi, fit around her waist to keep the kimono tied just enough so it gave a tantalizing glimpse of flesh instead being practically naked.

Her hair was combed and styled with a few pins and a comb before she was guided to a dining room area where more than a few other girls were eating. A cook in the back, another old woman who Midori suspected had once been a whore but grew too old, was carefully preparing some more food and the young girl guiding Midori bounced forward.

"Hay obaa-san, we got a new girl!" The young girl waved her arms in Midori's directions before scooting closer and whispering, "Hey what's your name?"

Midori gave a little smile to the girl but spoke up to everyone, "Ohayo, my name is Sayuri."

"Ohayo!" Many of the other girls and women called out before going back to eat and resting, preparing themselves for work which would truly pick up in a few hours.

Midori walked to the cook and grabbed a bowl of rice with some fish and pickled cabbage on top. There were actual pickles as well, and Midori used her chopsticks to pluck them from her bowl and place them in the bowl of her young companion.

"Do you not like pickled vegetable?" She asked almost incredulously.

"I don't like pickled cucumbers but I love pickled cabbage, just something odd."

The young girl raised a confused eyebrow, "You like pickled cabbage but not pickled cucumber, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever."

Midori just shrugged and sat down at a table to enjoy her meal.

"By the way, my name is Katayama Nanao, pleasure to meet you Sayuri-san."

Midori just gave a smile, not speaking as it was rude while she was eating.

Once they were finished with their meal, Nanao showed her to a room which would become Midori's. It was a simple room consisting of a bed and red drapes lining the walls with candles dotting various surfaces of the room.

"This is the room which you can keep your keep your clothes and other items. You can decorate the room how you like, we have other stuff that could help decorate the room but there isn't much, just some old stuff." Nanao said while Midori walked around the room a bit to inspect it.

"Thank you Nanao-chan, I think its fine as it is for now." Midori set her backpack, which she had been carrying with her since arriving at the brothel, and sat on the edge of the bed. "How often does the bedding get changed?"

"It gets washed every night you work and the sheets get replaced every few months depending on how it looks." Nanao said, "I hope you get a client soon, the sooner you get your first client and the more money you earn gets you higher standing within the house. All those other girls seemed nice to you while we were eating but they're only waiting for tonight before tearing you to pieces."

Midori smiled warmly, knowingly, and simply thanked the younger girl. "Yes, I could tell quite easily. I'll get ready and be out in an hour."

The young girl gave a short bow and left Midori alone, closing the door behind her.

The second Nanao left, Midori scowled. She hated this work. She was good at it and enjoyed such night time activities with those she trusted, however she felt that doing this sort of work for the clan was demeaning and took any sort of pleasure out of the actual physical act of sex when against a mark. After this mission, since it was truly her first mission on her own, Midori would get back to the clan and Ichizo (the commander of the seduction and assassin corps) would grant her permission to have the graduating present as a member of the seduction corps. It was a suicide seal, one that when used, would use fire to completely incinerate her body into ash. The seal was disguised within any sort of flower (which Midori was going to choose a white Asiatic Lily with a dark purple center) but the seal itself was disguised as the small black widow spider that hid within the depths of the flower.

Midori would earn that seal when she finished this mission and successfully killed her mark, like some sort of black widow though she luckily didn't have to marry her target. However, that still didn't make her feelings on this sort of work any easier. It also didn't help that she was so good at this work because she had twenty years of memories to fall back on though they were civilian based. Those memories were made of her core beliefs, that she loved the beauty in the world and that she would do anything to survive no matter what.

Quickly, Midori put on some light make-up and simplistic jewelry made from very beautiful glass beads, feathers, and some fake flowers were added to her hair. Everything else that she had carried with her was put away and carefully hidden from thieving hands of some of the other workers.

She finished primping herself and exited her room practically glowing with beauty and vitality. The madam, Akoto, could already tell that Midori was going to bring in plenty of money since she wasn't of the normal garden variety of girls in the brothel. Even the prettiest worker seemed to pale when in Midori's vicinity. She wore her skimpy kimono, with her breast practically falling out and her thighs constantly being showcased, as if it was a high-class outfit with long lustrous black hair that glistened in the dim lighting of the brothel.

Midori smirked at the different women, all seething in anger at the stolen spotlight, and sat on a cushion in the back room waiting for the first of the costumers. Akoto came in and hustled one of the girls out, whom Midori assumed would be used for those who couldn't afford more expensive sex as the other woman was quite plain but without any deficiencies. More than a few other girls were hustled out to go entertain a man for the night, when Akoto called out for Midori. "Sayuri, you're up. You got two boys paying good coin for a new girl and those two boys already know all the girls here." The old woman scowled darkly.

With little effort, Midori stood up and walked to the front room where her client would be waiting. There, waiting for her was some handsome noble-like fellow with whom Midori assumed was his brother.

The men grinned at each other perversely, obviously each were perverts of the highest order and they had the coin to pay for the service. Midori held back a glare of disgust, hating what she would have to put up with to get some good credit within the brothel for the time her actual mark came around. If she just showed up working at the brothel at the same exact time her mark came around, then everyone would be too suspicious to let her close to do her job. It would be nice if she could just kill him but she needed info and torture was out of the option since Midori wasn't to let anyone know that her mark had given away key information. She was only to show that she killed him as if in self-defense, not actual murder.

Sauntering up to her two customers, Midori guided them to her room and let them undress her while they leered at her form. They guided her to the bed, enjoying the fact that they were in complete control as they gripped her breasts or dipped their fingers within her core. They licked up her neck, kissing and sucking against her pale skin, and one brother pushed her to the bed while the other began undressing.

Midori smirked and spread her legs wide while leaning back a bit to show off her entire naked body. No words were spoken as the two men crawled over the bed towards her. Midori then, without effort, used pressure points to heighten their pleasure so much that their eyes rolled back into their heads and they collapsed. She didn't feel like entertaining them at all, not after having to force herself to have sex with her previous mark. Sex had been a requirement since there needed to be actual evidence.

Now, she had used pressure points to cause such a heightening of pleasure that their minds had overloaded from the sensation. A result of that however was their sticky white messes coating the covers of her bed which annoyed her quite a bit. With ease, Midori rolled both naked men off the bed and changed the spoiled covers before lifting the two into the bed. She slipped between both men and covered their obvious nakedness with the sheets and bedspread.

With ease, Midori slipped into a half-sleep, not really sleeping but not really awake. This allowed her to stay aware of her environment and be able to react accordingly but still letting her body rest. This could be used for a week but Midori knew that not actual sleeping and only staying half-asleep for multiple days would be the exact same as staying up for multiple days in a row. It was possible to function on little to no sleep when out in the field but often times it made a shinobi unwary and act as they shouldn't. Going in a half-asleep approach compared to full sleep staved off the approach of sleep deprivation and allowed the body and chakra to rest and recuperate but not at the same rate as if one was actually sleeping.

The two men were out for the count for the rest of the night and Midori came aware from her half-sleep state to them groaning a bit as they woke up.

"I can't even remember what happened last night, it was so amazing." Stated the older brother.

Midori hid a smirk and continued to pretend to sleep. The second brother slowly responded to his now awake brother before turning to the obviously beautiful and still naked form of Midori who was lying face down on the bed with one leg hooked over the younger brother's. The two brothers gave each other grins, though they were still slightly tired from such an 'active' night. Midori wanted to roll her eyes in exasperation as the older brother 'stealthily' slipped between her legs, having awoken with a full morning wood that tented the sheets, and proceeded to 'wake' his bed partner with 'unexpected' sex.

Midori faked a few throaty moans and clawed at the sheets while the elder brother pumped within her body. He stopped soon after, letting his younger brother have a go, while stroking himself at the sight. The younger brother had lifted Midori's hips, allowing for a better and deeper angle, and Midori couldn't actually help but enjoy herself when putting all thoughts of missions into the back of her mind. These two, while not shinobi and without the stamina of shinobi, knew what they were doing as Midori suspected they had been enjoying the pleasures of the female flesh since they were teens and actually knew what sex was.

They each took turns until they decided to both go at her at the same time. Being as experienced and trained as she was, Midori held no fright as one man positioned himself in front of her and the other behind. They pushed themselves both inside her at the same time before beginning and alternating pattern to piston in and out of her core. They were soon spent while Midori had to fake an orgasm as she was used to shinobi stamina. Spent, Midori let them lie on the bed while she got up and dressed. She was putting on some lingerie when they finally got up. As they dressed, the elder brother pulled out a stack of bills from his pocket and carefully tucked them away in the cleavage of Midori's breasts before stealing a kiss.

"We will totally be back, keep the tip." He said while the younger brother gave a smirk and stole his own kiss.

Once they left, Midori cleaned herself up and went to the dining room to get something to eat. She hid away the money within her obi, and gave a dark smirk to the different glaring women who were slowly trickling in from their nights with customers.

A week passed, Midori becoming the prized whore of the brothel since she knew so many shinobi tricks to give overloading pleasure to the men she serviced. None of them suspected she was any sort of shinobi but just knew that she was quite skilled between the sheets.

Finally, her mark came to the brothel and bought out the entire building for three days. Azuma Roka was wealthy but a big pile of lard. He was fat as can be, owned a few slaves and ordered his servants to constantly feed his growing girth. Different women of the brothel were commanded to drape themselves across him as he sat eating more food than an average civilian could afford with a month's work. At night, he had different women pleasure him and feed him while doing so. He was disgusting and Midori honestly couldn't tell how he had survived so long.

He was a stain against humanity and the different girls he had pleasure him at night were very grateful and kept silent when each night Midori used her pressure point technique to knock Roka out and make him think it was pleasure that did it.

By the third day, all the girls of the brothel were disgusted by the pig but kept silent in fear of what he could order his plethora of guards to do, especially since his guards had already hurt a few of the girls while having sex.

The entire time Roka was there, though he left during the day to conduct business, Midori had been slipping small amounts of poison into his drink as he drank sake like water. There was no need to kill him in self-defense as Midori could fake a lethal heart attack. The last night, Midori used pressure points to make him spill all his dirty little secrets before giving him the final dose of poison, one that was slow acting and impossible to detect after death since it was volatile and broke down at room temperature compared to body temperature.

Midori followed the fat pig as he left the brothel and town in a massive horse driven carriage until he had a sudden and fatal heart attack another six days later on the road between towns. Midori had already collected her stuff from the brothel, left behind all the money she had earned plus some extra to Nanao who Midori had learned wanted to leave the brothel but couldn't afford to, and was soon making her way back to Uzu.


	26. Chapter 26

(18 Years Old)

Midori crashed onto her futon, exhausted and practically falling apart at the seams. Even with all the conditioning she went through when she had been sixteen, she had a sharp increase in anxiety, helplessness as if she were no longer feeling in control of her life, low self-esteem and a bit of humiliation and shame. No one could know her occupation, and it felt like some sort of dirty secret that would forever mar her reputation. Luckily, after two years, she was out. She was kicked out of the seduction side of her corps but now she could take more relaxing assassination missions.

Her commander had noticed her increase in agitation and her inability to relax and after a quick review, it was determined that she needed at least a break from the seduction missions. A break at the very least because she was still one of his best operatives.

She had been the best in the seduction division, having moved to more difficult missions in increasing frequency which meant she flew up the ranks within the division. She had been forced to take some extra training from the Torture and Interrogation Corps so her seduction missions to get information went a lot easier (especially since not all interrogation relied on pain and she was well versed in using pleasure as torture).

Being suspended from seduction missions for at least a few months to get her head on straight as well as being forced to take some training for the Corps, Midori was given leave for two weeks to relax before taking any assassination missions.

Midori was fine with this, it would allow her to create some new techniques with Issen Amimasu. Her poor sword seemed to have been neglected for a while, as she had only been able to do some routine practice and no actual missions where the weapon had been truly needed.

Her time away from the business, basically a short vacation, allowed her to learn that she had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It was simple and practically lifesaving in her job, but it was annoying when she had discovered it. She had a constant compulsion to check on her gear. She would check and see her gear at all spare times. All Midori's gear had to be placed just perfectly where it belonged and it would constantly annoy her if it wasn't done properly. She hated premade packs of anything since she was compelled to fix it to her liking or else it bugged her and started making her anxious.

Along with having all her gear in tip top shape and where it was supposed to be, she had a compulsions to tap her fingers against her thigh when anxious exactly three times. Any time she began feeling anxiety, which wasn't very frequent during missions since her personal emotions were shunted to the back of her mind, she tapped her thigh. Midori had noticed that the more time she spent around stupid civilians or the like, the more anxious she got and the more she began tapping her fingers in a rhythm of three.

Other than those minor things, which could really bug her, she was enjoying her break.

Midori curled up against her stuffed tiger, a new one she had created and it was so large that it was literally twice the size of her body and practically the size of the futon. The tiger was just one in her massive collection of stuffed tigers, including Albino Tigger her first stuffed tiger. She snuffled a bit, squirming among her piles of stuffed animals, and practically buried herself among the fluff.

She was dressed in a yukata top and simple silk draw-string pants which were comfortable especially in the slight heat. Nothing was going to bother her while she lay comfortable in her pile of stuffed animals on her futon, and she continued squirming trying to get just a little bit more comfortable.

A few fake tiger claws dug into her side and Midori huffed before wiggling around a bit more to dislodge the uncomfortable claws.

Outside of her room, Midori could easily sense her parents watching her with what had to be some sort of funny face as they could only see a quivering, moving pile of stuffed animals. Midori huffed, ignoring them, and used a chakra chain to scoop up any stuffed tigers that had fallen off the futon back over her to completely cover her.

A waste of chakra, though not much since it was just a chakra construct, and Midori sighed in content. She was finally perfectly comfortable.

Not moving an inch, Midori tensed up every single muscle in her body before unclenching and releasing all her stress as well. She closed her eyes and slipped off into an easy meditation, relaxing but not yet quite ready to actually fall asleep.

She had been stressed as she crawled into her futon, but she was relaxing. She wasn't deluding herself to the fact that she was still falling apart, but that could wait a bit until she gained more equilibrium in her sense of self.

Meditation smoothed out all the spikes in her chakra, and she could watch her core with her mind's eye swirl agitatedly before beginning to smooth and calm. Midori watched, and helped, her chakra smooth and even out which took a lot of her stress out of her. Spiking chakra set the body to react and tense up so smoothing and relaxing her chakra helped release the stress and tension in her body.

An hour later, Midori felt her chakra was once more calm and tranquil within her body, so she went outside of it. Her mind trailed through her body before she focused more on the outside.

Nature chakra, no matter how chaotic and dangerous, was natural and sedative. It was why she figured that turning into stone wasn't recognized by the user and dealt with, it calmed you down so much that you didn't really notice it taking over your body and turning you to stone. Midori could also infer that bijuu chakra was blistering and acidic but when purified would be much like natural chakra while also being augmenting even further upon the bolstering effect of the chakra. She equated chakra in this sense to juice, natural chakra to caffeinated but soothing tea, and purified bijuu chakra to some sort of condensed energy drink in the form of a bubbly drink.

Midori, with all the experience feeling natural chakra because of her navel seal, could now collect it naturally. The seal was now a shortcut to using the energy without having to sit still to collect the chakra. She had used the natural chakra so many times that she was experienced in feeling it, plus it didn't hurt that she had a backup seal that helped to shock her system should her body become overwhelmed with nature chakra and start turning to stone.

Nature chakra flowed through her, entering her body, swirling around every single cell inside her, and leaving just as it arrived. She was one with nature, she did not exist, she held emotions but she was at peace, there was no chaos but instead there was harmony. Midori was calm, embracing nature and all its perfections and imperfection, and then she came back to herself.

Her body was practically rubber, it was so relaxed.

Midori sighed in content, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep. She didn't feel like reminiscing on any of her missions that she had done, nor did she think of the training she would have to do.

She simply drifted off into a simple dreamless sleep.


	27. Chapter 27

(18 Years Old)

"Shit!" Midori cried, her hands burned as she had forced too much chakra through them.

She was practicing with Issen Amimasu, the sword was difficult with any new techniques. It acted like some sort of unwieldy lump of unshaped metal than an actual sentient sword whenever Midori tried creating a new technique. The sword was belligerent and cantankerous during any practice but it was only after Midori finally created a technique that it complied with the use of the new technique.

Midori had also discovered that the damn sword got jealous if she used any other sort of nodachi, o-katana, katana, nor odachi. It barely liked the tanto Midori had, but the blade seemed to grudgingly agree that it was too large to use when indoors. The sword was picky and fickle, and half the time Midori felt like actually yelling at it.

Midori sighed and brought the sword in front of her body again. She was dressed in full hakama, simple grey pants with a blue top. Her hair was tied in a tail high on her head and her bangs were kept out of her face by a bandana.

Smoothly, her chakra slipped into the blade and she swung it a few times as practice before holding the nodachi in a one-handed grip. "Karasu Kari! (Crow Hunt!)" With a quick application of chakra and a face paced piercing technique, Midori impaled and slashed a training log a dozen times.

The backlash of the technique had her pushed back by the sheer power behind the strength of her attack.

Midori panted as she watched the smoke clear from the now destroyed log and smirked, finally having finished the technique.

With a quick hand sign, Midori called forth a few clones who then spread out to throw kunai.

She stood silently, prepared, and waited for them to attack.

With bare twitches, her clones threw a few dozen kunai at her and Midori brought her sword up in preparation. "Karasu Kari!" Midori called out again as she began the technique.

Fast, swift slashes and pierces, fast enough that even she couldn't see her own blade, and she had literally cut every single kunai in half so that the metal aimed at her completely missed.

The clones dispelled and Midori gave a smirk, and finally gripped Issen Amimasu with both hands before sheathing it.

She entered a quick draw stance, Iaido, and released her sword with a burst of chakra.

A wave of chakra was released, cutting and destroying a line of training posts.

Midori let out a breath of half exhaustion, having been practicing for a few hours already. She resheathed the sword and set it carefully over her shoulder in a special cloth cradle she had created so it wouldn't have to always be carried on her shoulder or in a seal. The cloth cradle made it so that the sword was almost parallel to the ground at the small of her back. It would allow for her to grip the handle and sheath for a quick draw if needed but it helped keep the sword out of the way of her arms, though she had to be conscious of how far the blade stuck out at her sides when she walked.

Midori stretched a bit and began walking to headquarters.

Her break was soon over and Midori was going to see if they would release her early for some sort of mission. Midori had already promised to herself that it would be a long time before she took any seduction missions, but she would instead focus on other types of missions.

She needed to focus on her goals, to live long enough to change the fate of her clan and the fate of this world. It had been years since she worked on anything much, but Midori already had an idea to live a long and practically immortal life. She wouldn't go for multiple hearts or devote herself to the god Jashin, but instead would be focusing on all that inner energy that occurred naturally within the body… chakra.

Chakra was her ticket to immortality, at least temporarily as she didn't actually want to live forever.

Midori had a massive seal she was drawing out. A seal that was connected with glue by a dozen of those massive three feet wide and dozens of feet long scrolls. The paper ended up being 36 feet wide and 120 feet long. She had started out with the normal Uzumaki sealing swirl to help stabilize the entire seal, but had expanded far, far beyond that.

Her seal, when condensed, would cover her back. It would still be so large that it would have sealing symbols crawling up and around the back of her neck like some sort of collar, symbols reaching around to her breasts and covering the sides of her ribs, coils of symbols reaching around her hips from her back and covering the bones of her hips to sneak upon the dip of her pelvis, and tendrils of symbols peppering all the way to her buttocks and even down to her thighs.

The whole point of the seal was to use chakra automatically with a set purpose in her body. She had studied all available documents on the bijuu and they were chakra constructs that also interacted on the physical plane. The seal was made to act much like the bijuu. It would siphon chakra to all areas of her body and replace old or destroyed cells with chakra constructs that would act exactly like flesh would.

The seal would take years to finish its task. There were over 700 trillion cells in the body and Midori needed to convert every single one of them into chakra so slowly that the cells never converted back into flesh. It would take years because not only would the chakra construct, that would be completely dependent upon the seal, have to do every single task normally done by the cells, but it would have to sustain be able to interact with the physical plane like she normally did.

Midori had found out through some experimentation, that whenever she used the transformation seals, her senses were normally muted. She couldn't really see but instead she sensed with chakra. She had realized that when she couldn't see colors though she 'saw' things anyway. Taste was destroyed when transformed, hearing was vibrations so that hadn't been muted, her voice had been gone as the transformations weren't able to create fine-tuned organs that helped to speak, and her sense of touch had been destroyed as well since there were no nerves to send signals. In her transformed state, she could literally feel no pain, taste nothing, smell nothing, speak nothing, and she couldn't see colors.

With the massive seal, she would slowly conform her cells to chakra but the chakra would be doing the exact same job as the actual flesh cells. She would even be able to donate blood if needed since the blood cells would be indiscernible to actual flesh cells save that they didn't age like actual cells. Everything would work as it was supposed to, the chakra cells would multiply through mitosis when needed, but the chakra cells wouldn't age and decay over time.

The massive size of the seal was needed to be able to actually keep her body running like it should even though it would be made of chakra. The size of the seal was also mainly to let the seal have an imprint of what her body would normally be like, how each cell should act, and the seal would create a template and map of every single cell in her body so the seal would have a model to fall back on every time she was injured.

She wasn't yet finished with the seal, it would take weeks to complete since she daren't make a mistake so she had to constantly check and recheck. She also wasn't entirely finished with the seal, she was constantly having to tweak different aspects of it and often found she had to completely rewrite a certain sequence of seals.

Midori sighed and made her way through the entrance of the assassination and seduction headquarters. It was a simple building with a front desk manned by an old woman dressed impeccably in a kimono. The actual entrance was in a hidden door right behind where the old woman sat on her little stool. Midori entered in the chakra sequence and entered into the stairwell when the hidden door opened, having been disguised by seals.

She slipped down into the main room, where a few others were lounging around, and Midori gave them each little nods of respect.

"What are you doing here? You have time off!" Ichizo growled out as he was doing paperwork at his desk.

"Yes sir, but I've only got three days left of break and wish to take a mission."

Ichizo growled and pawed through his mission scrolls before handing Midori one, "An assassination mission, no seduction. You've been kicked off that section for a while so don't dare even beg for any."

Midori bowed, not daring to argue that she didn't even want any of those type of missions. She took the scroll and headed to her locker where she had stored her armor. No need to even change into it, instead she only grabbed a scroll labeled with 'Assassination' before heading to the hot springs located in the village.

She stepped out of headquarters and made her way slowly to the communal bathing house, sitting directly on top of some natural hot springs.

Midori bathed quickly, washing her body, before she slipped into the heated waters of the hot springs. A few other young kunoichi were giggling and having fun chatting and gossiping. Midori could see the flower and spider on the hip of one of the girls and Midori couldn't help but frown.

She placed a folded cloth, damp and cold, over her head and sunk nearly completely underwater. She halfway hated the warring clans era. Everyone fought from the young kids to full adults, constantly fighting and trying to survive while bettering the clan. Midori could only hope for when the Senju and Uchiha formed Konoha. She suspected it wouldn't be long before she heard of Madara and Hashirama as there had been news of the fighting between the two clans escalating. It seemed nowadays that you couldn't have one clan nearby without seeing the other.

Midori suspected that Madara and Hashirama would be around soon, though Midori wasn't entirely sure when that would be. Luckily, she had seen the clan head's wife with a full and pregnant belly. Midori could only pray that the baby would be Uzumaki Mito or else Midori suspected she would be around for even longer before she came to any sort of timeline that she recognized.

She couldn't wait for the hidden villages to come around because she lived in a period of constant war. She was counterintelligence and an assassin for her clan, using her bed skills to seduce the information out of her targets or she was an assassin against the enemies of the clan. There was really no way not to help the clan any way she could, be that as a seduction specialist or assassin, because every single clan member was forced to do their part lest their clan be wounded by outside attacks.

Midori finished relaxing and left the hot springs, unsealing a simple change of clothes from a seal located on her wrist. She walked home casually, changed into her mission gear to help disguise herself and that meant she left behind her armor and Issen Amimasu was put in its seal.

Running to the docks, Midori simply jumped out onto the waters and began the long run to the mainland. On the way she would read the mission scroll, but for now, Midori just relaxed and enjoyed the wind in her face and the howling of the whirlpools.

She would think of some more techniques to try later. Midori was also thinking of weaponizing Issen Amimasu's sheath so she could use two-sword techniques, but Midori just relaxed a bit before she had to put herself in her mission mindset.


	28. Chapter 28

(18 Years Old)

Midori fidgeted a bit, dressed up all nice and fancy as she stood next to her mother. They had been invited to see the clan head's new daughter.

Midori was praying silently, fingers crossed that the little babe was named Mito and she wouldn't be some other Uzumaki princess. She hoped silently that this little newborn was Mito which would put Midori only a few decades before the creation of the hidden villages.

By that point, Midori would have already been well on her way to immortality but she hadn't wanted to hang around the world for a couple hundred years. Eternity seemed quite terrifying which was why she had purposely created a way to be able to turn off the immortality seal when she no longer wanted nor needed it.

Ukitake was dressed in his finest armor, standing behind the clan head with a trio of other guards, and the clan head came out holding his little daughter in his arms. He was actually smiling down at his newborn daughter, not scowling like he normally did.

Midori couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as practically all the other women began cooing over the small infant. There wasn't much of a maternal bone in Midori's body, though she someday hoped for kids but not anywhere in the near future, and Midori couldn't understand how all these other women thought that the tiny machine that pooped, cried, and slept was in anyway cute.

Remembering back when she was a babe herself, Midori couldn't help but shudder at the horrible mental scarring from when she couldn't help soiling herself. Midori then couldn't help the sting of jealousy that everyone around her couldn't remember their infant days.

The babe was sleeping, wrapped like some sort of burrito in a pink blanket and Midori did admit it was kind of cute, but not worth cooing and making weird baby faces.

"Let me introduce you to the newest Uzumaki Princess, Uzumaki Mito."

Midori gave a sigh of relief, thankful that she knew where she was generally in the time-line. She suspected now that Madara and Hashirama were probably already born but still most likely in diapers or just starting their training.

Everyone passed by the clan head, passing along gifts to the new father and his daughter, and Midori stepped forward as well.

She passed along a trio of paintings. One was of butterflies, one of the whirlpool waves, and one of fairies which symbolized Mito's name of "fairy tale" or "mythology." Midori had a backup scroll with a painting of birds should the baby not have turned out to be Mito. Then, to the clan head, Midori gave him a sealing scroll containing one of her own blades she had created. It was a set of blades with both the katana and the tanto that Midori had carefully forged with chakra conductive metal and titanium.

Once they all left, Midori was giddy with excitement and half shock. She was so relieved that the little baby had been Mito that Midori was acting like a giddy little school girl.

Kikyou couldn't help but look at her daughter oddly, especially since Midori was acting so weirdly, but smiled and ignored her daughter's odd behavior.

Midori skipped a little as they both walked home. Once she was safe within her room, Midori could barely activate her privacy seals before she was jumping and screaming in excitement.

She had been waiting for some sign of the timeline in Naruto for years, and she had turned eighteen months ago. Eighteen years was a long time to know about the Naruto timeline but not be able to even know how long she would have to wait. It helped that her immortality seal was completed and a dozen clones were still going over every single inch to make sure there were no mistakes.

There would be over a hundred years before the real timeline began, when the kyuubi would be released from the next Uzumaki princess, Kushina, and sealed within Naruto.

Midori slowly calmed down, flopping down on her stuffed tigers, and felt all this nervous tension leave he shoulders. Tension that she hadn't even realized that she had been carrying. Truly, it was a huge relief to know where she stood among the plot and timeline so she knew what she could do and would be able to change if she so chose to do so.

Calmed down, Midori stood up and changed from her formal kimono in her practice hakama before grabbing Issen Amimasu. The sword seemed to pick up her giddy attitude and was releasing its own excitement as Midori took the blade outside to start some practice.

Midori created a trio of clones and had them begin practicing with against her.

The first clone attacked with a slash and Midori deflected easily with her blade before deflecting another clone's attack with the sheath of her blade. She was practicing the double sword style, but with the sheath as the second sword since Issen Amimasu would get jealous if she dared use another blade in tandem with it.

Another clone attacked with a stab and Midori brought her scabbard forward to actually sheath the other blade. It was done expertly as Midori trapped the clone's blade within her scabbard which prevented the clone from taking back the blade. Midori had modified Issen Amimasu's scabbard so that it would be able to sheath attacker's swords in the middle of a fight with a lock so the blade wouldn't be taken back out without her wanting it.

Midori swung her blade at another clone, which was blocked, and blocked another clone's attack with the scabbard. The swordless clone began attacking by flinging braces of kunai.

"Karasu Kari!" Midori yelled out, activating her chakra along her blade, and slashed through every single kunai to deflect and cut each blade in half.

Midori then used her thumb to unlock the blade from inside her scabbard and swung the scabbard so the blade flew like a high-velocity missile at one of the attacking clones. Midori smirked as one of the clones was then dispelled as she swung her sword and scabbard in tandem to block a strike and attack at the same time.

With two clones left, Midori attacked quickly, not losing momentum. She swung the blade and blocked with the scabbard, cutting and slashing until both clones dispelled.

Midori turned to a training post and gave a guttural cry as she slashed forward with Issen Amimasu to create a massive furrow in the ground which destroyed the training post to pieces.

"I should totally name that Getsuga Tensho, would totally be awesome." Midori smirked as she saw the massive cut in the earth from her single slash that tore the training field to pieces along with the training posts.

Sheathing her blade, Midori used a quick earth jutsu to fill in the scarred earth. The jutsu didn't need any sort of earth chakra training like most jutsus, but it would work much easier and with less of a chakra cost to use it if she did earth chakra training. Midori just didn't feel like that because she felt there was no need since she didn't use earth jutsus while fighting. She only really used lightning and water jutsus, and then that was more nature manipulations than traditional jutsu.

Midori sighed happily as she watched a handful of clones work on cleaning out the forge which was still covered in soot from when Midori had made the clan head's new swords.

Midori turned back to her room, which faced the back yard which doubled as her training yard, and set Issen Amimasu down to begin giving the blade a thorough cleaning and polishing.

The blade practically hummed and puffed up with pride, though it couldn't actually puff up, as it soon began gleaming with a mirror like shine.

Relaxed, Midori smirked and couldn't wait for the future in which she would help change her world for the better, especially as she didn't dare want the horrors of war to come around again. Especially since she already lived in a never ending war that was the warring clan era.


	29. Chapter 29

(18 Years Old)

It was definitely nice doing some normal missions again.

Midori had been forced to go on so many assassination missions recently, because the clan wars seemed to have picked up a bit harsher than before, that Midori felt as though she couldn't wash the blood off her hands. The contracts coming into the clan were higher than ever and the clan head wanted dozens of people dead so as not to be a threat to the clan.

Currently, Midori was out in samurai country, or what Midori assumed would be Iron Country soon from the rough maps she had drawn as a child. She had a commission lined up for her by the Uzumaki clan head to gift a series of weapons to a shinobi clan located in the snow covered mountains, and Midori had truly been shocked that her work was great enough to be spread to more than just the Uzumaki clan.

Truthfully, Midori suspected that her clan head had been forced to fight, as he was one of the strongest nin in Uzu, and he had used the weapons she had gifted him. He must have liked the weapon so much that he thought it would help with the treaty being propositioned to the other shinobi clan.

It helped that all her various weapons she had created trying practice for the creation of Issen Amimasu had been sold since they were all good blades no matter what type of weapon she created. It also helped that she could produce five times the amount of weaponry as compared to a civilian blacksmith because she was able to use chakra to supplement herself throughout the process of weapons creation.

Midori felt a shiver rack through her entire body as she continued running on top of the snow. She couldn't help but smirk at the two other Uzumaki shinobi, two men that usually guarded the clan head but were escorting her because of the high classification of the mission. Those two were having to trudge through the snow, going slowly since the snow was up to their knees and sometimes up to the waist. Midori felt truly lucky that she had been on a mission to a snow covered country for a mission and had been able to spy on a few shinobi to learn how to walk on snow.

It helped that she could regulate her chakra quite easily and had chakra control great enough to use most genjutsu or iryojutsu, which most of the Uzumaki clan couldn't even fathom using.

Midori continued jogging forward, since she couldn't go too fast with her escort trudging through the snow, when Midori came to an abrupt halt.

Tensing up, Midori grabbed Issen Amimasu who had been resting against her shoulder and held the weapon against her hip in a fast draw position.

"How many do you sense?" One of her escorts asked, both having already tensed up and prepared to fight.

Midori peered closely around her at the silent snow covered forest, "Five at five-hundred meters directly in front of us. I suspect they were farther out as scouts and already called for backup."

They only had to wait a little more than a minute for the other group to show up and Midori could scarcely hold back the shock at seeing such shocking, gravity defying, silver hair. Each one, two men and a woman, had silver hair and were all over six feet. Midori felt slightly small since she only just topped out at five foot seven compared to the other woman who had to be six foot three. Midori did feel bad though for the other woman since her silver tresses seemed to want to defy gravity but was too heavy and therefore was super spiky even when pulled back in a ponytail.

"You are entering the Hatake Clan grounds, trespassers. State your business or prepare to be cut down." The leader of the group stated calmly, though he had his hands on a tanto that just stuck over one broad shoulder.

Midori slowly and carefully pulled out a scroll to unwind it. With care, Midori showed the mission and treaty scroll to the other shinobi, the leader of who came forward a bit to read the scroll. The Hatake relaxed minutely which had Midori relaxing her tensed muscles in response, knowing she was no longer threatened to fight.

Not only would this mission going to help create a stronger alliance between the Hatake and Uzumaki clans, it would act as a sort of vacation for Midori.

"You will be escorted through the Hatake grounds and given accommodations, please follow." The lead Hatake stated simply before turning around and running off while on top of the snow.

The other two Hatake nin surround Midori and her two escorts as they made their way slowly towards the hidden clan.

It took a half hour to finally get to the clan buildings and Midori could barely hold in a giggle at seeing over a dozen shinobi and kunoichi with spiky, gravity defying silver hair. The clan buildings were traditional with sloping roofs and rice paper walls protected with bamboo.

Midori and her two escorts were shown to a trio of guest rooms in guest building where they were allowed to freshen up before being shown to the Hatake leader. Hatake Takeshi was dressed quite properly like a samurai swordsman but with pieces that Midori knew would be easier to move in as a shinobi than a true samurai.

"You are here as part of the treaty that will be signed between the Hatake's and the Uzumaki."

Midori gave a bow as was proper before sitting down, dressed in her best clothes as she had cleaned herself up and changed to look presentable. She was dressed in a heavy dark blue furisode with a red flower pattern marked from the hems. The clan symbol, an orange swirl, was stitched onto each shoulder and just under the center of the collar of the furisode. The sleeves were slit at the shoulders so that creamy white fabric of a different layer was shown while the sleeves hung lower than normal so as to help hide Midori's scarred fingers and hands. Her hair was put up nicely with hair pins, a large golden decorative hair comb carved with flower patterns that matched the furisode and a matching double sided pin.

Looking presentable was half the battle when dealing with many clans be them shinobi, samurai or civilian.

"We thank you for your time and for this opportunity you have presented for us." Midori said politely.

The Hatake head gave a small polite bow, not as low as Midori as was proper for the head of the clan lest it be portrayed that he thought of Midori as an equal.

"I am here, Hatake-sama, to gift the Hatake clan with a series of weapons created for the whole purpose as to support the treaty and show good will to the Hatake clan." Midori stated politely before pulling a scroll from her obi and setting it before the Hatake head.

Takeshi opened the scroll and activated the storage seals so the a dozen different weapons appear into existence with small bursts of chakra smoke. Each storage seal held a different weapon and the scroll had exactly two dozen storage seals.

With an impressively blank face, Takeshi held one weapon up for inspection before giving a gracious nod. "These are all impressively made, they will be put to fine use. Give my thanks to the creator of these fine blades."

Midori gave a bow, "Thank you for your appreciation of the work I put into creating these weapons for your clan."

Takeshi appraised Midori more closely, being quite amazed that Midori was able to create the high class weapons. Weapons that Midori had created with a conglomeration of techniques she knew from her previous life.

"Take this scroll back to your clan with the answer of our alliance. The compound will be open to you for as long as you need before you leave." Takeshi stated before resealing the weapons in the scroll and standing up to leave.

Midori stood up from where she had been sitting and gave a bow before leaving the room.

Back in her private guest room, Midori unsealed her koto and began playing the thirteen stringed instrument. It would be a waste of time to change out of her nice clothes if she was called to eat with the Hatake clan head, so Midori just sat behind the koto and began playing. It was a good way to pass the time as well as practice her music skills which had gone to the wayside in the wake of all the recent assassination missions.

Truthfully, Midori was bored out of her mind.

It seemed that lately all her missions were blurring together and that she was stuck until something happened. She didn't know what that something would be, but she suspected that something would be when she left the clan.

To live long enough to protect her clan and actually be able to meet Naruto, which was the major goal she had just for living in the Naruto world, she would need to leave the clan. Midori didn't want hunters after her, saying she was a traitor to the clan for leaving like some sort of missing nin, but Midori would still need to leave. So, Midori had decided to fake her death. It would be something like fighting against some sort of powerful nin and she needed to make sure her 'body' wasn't recoverable by any means.

She didn't know when she would fake her death, Midori just knew it would happen. She knew it would happen at the first opportunity she was given. However it would have to be believable, which would be very hard.

One scenario that was out would have been to be snuck up upon and killed, but being in the assassination division meant they trained the sensed and chakra detection so no one could sneak up on her. She wouldn't be able to be detected since again, the assassination division had made it so where it was practically impossible to be detected, and she was recognized as good enough to even be able to sneak up on her teachers and instructors.

It would have to be on some regular mission, which weren't handed out very often to her since she was so good at assassination missions. She would need to get just the right regular mission, probably some sort of protection detail that would get ambushed by a powerful group of enemy shinobi.

Midori sighed, trying to rein in her horrible mood which made her music dark and dreary. It sucked to be such a powerful kunoichi who hadn't hid many of her skills, this meant that all her higher-ups knew of her strengths. Strengths such as high stealth, high detections skills, high assassination skills, high chakra manipulation be it with the chakra chains or chakra nature, and high sword skills.

There were still hundreds of shinobi around the continent that could probably wipe the floor with her, making her seem as helpless as a babe in the face of tiger, however she knew she was gaining power to survive.

Power which would help her survive as long as she needed.

Midori truthfully wanted to be strong enough to destroy a mountain with a swing of her blade without some sort of chakra technique, just pure strength. She wanted to create an ocean from the simplest of water techniques and not feel drained. She wanted to smash through the dimensions like Kaguya to destroy entire landscapes. Midori wanted to be as strong as all the main characters in any book, movie, manga, or anime she had read or watched so she could protect what was important to her.

That strength that she was aiming for was still so far away that she couldn't even see it. Even now, with just the strength in her body and without any technique, Midori could level exactly three trees. She couldn't level a forest, she couldn't cut a rock without a technique, she couldn't create a lake without losing half her chakra, and she had yet to find a way to get to different dimensions like kamui did with ease.

Maybe she was putting herself down, but Midori categorized herself as a jounin. A jounin who would barely last a few minutes against a kage but might stand a chance of surviving against someone from the Sannin or one of the Akatsuki members.

Midori relaxed her shoulders and stopped plucking at the strings of her instrument.

Stress seemed to drag at her, clawing at her shoulders and creating a stress headache that Midori had noticed beginning to pound at her temples.

"I need a vacation." Midori sighed. Getting a treaty from the Hatake clan was easy, all she acted as was the messenger and gift giver. However she wasn't really able to relax, she wanted to relax somewhere on a beach with an ice cold drink in hand and a masseuse digging through the knots that Midori was one hundred percent sure mapped all along the muscles of her entire body.

Vacation time was given less and less for those that the clan head deemed competent. He needed good shinobi and kunoichi to do jobs that those of lesser skill wouldn't be able to accomplish without a larger team. This would have less free nin to do other needed jobs which held up the entire process of missions.

Vacation time became a long forgotten dream for those with competence, and the only vacation the good ninja got were when they were injured or when their psych evaluation came back too unstable for comfort.

Midori was one of those that were in high demand to do more complicated or dangerous missions. Though she wasn't any sort of front line kunoichi so she didn't have as much strength as most of the other high class shinobi, she had speed and stealth enough to make sure she was in high appeal for dangerous missions such as her common assassination missions.

Her mission history consisted about at three times the amount of assassination missions as any other mission type she had taken in her entire career. She had over three hundred assassinations to her name, not including the underlings she killed on those assignments. Nearly seventy seduction missions, which a good half of the missions didn't include actual sex with whoever the target included. Finally, she had over a hundred regular missions that she had taken with her first team which included the various escort, tracking, protection, sabotage, stealing, and courier missions.

At only eighteen, Midori felt like an old woman who had seen too much in her lifetime. Sometimes, Midori awoke in a cold sweat seeing nothing but blood that couldn't be washed off no matter how much water she ran over her hands.

Midori felt anxiety creep up on her and she finally noticed she was unconsciously tapping at her thigh in series of three.

Midori let out a breath and tried calming herself down from what felt like the beginnings of some sort of shinobi safe panic attack, which was a panic attack that just had adrenaline rushing through the blood and all senses so in overdrive that she would throw a weapon at anything that moved but she would begin hyperventilating which could cause a blackout if not caught in time. Midori entered a meditative state of mind and focused carefully on plucking the strings of the koto sitting right in front of her.

Focusing her entire being on playing, Midori lost herself to the music and didn't dare thinking of the state of her being.

She felt like her psyche was beginning to crack at the edges, only held together by the first two decades of her previous life. Midori now knew intimately what stress could do to anyone, and Midori had actually been confronted with a series of panic attacks. The first one had hit like a sledgehammer, and she hadn't understood what was going on until she had calmed down over a day later after having blacked out from hyperventilating.

Midori focused resolutely on playing her koto until she was once again calmed and her chakra was much less agitated than it had been before.

With a calming breath, Midori played until she was invited to eat dinner with the clan head. At dinner, Midori was as polite and respectful as if she had been born a noble with etiquette to match. She had a polite conversation with the Hatake head as well as various other important figures that had been invited to dine for such an important event which was the acceptance of the Uzumaki-Hatake alliance.

That night, Midori lay down and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Her gear was already set out ready for her and her escorts to head home to Uzu as soon as dawn arrived.


	30. Chapter 30

(19 Years Old)

Midori scowled darkly at the enemy shinobi. In her right hand was Issen Amimasu, and in her left was the sheath. She was covered in blood and gore, having been fighting a battle for a while now.

She had been on a training mission, not for herself, but to watch over a trainee.

Midori was considered good enough to watch over a team of trainees on their first true assassination missions. However, the stupid teens had tripped up an alarm and the entire shinobi compound was out for blood.

The enemy shinobi were some regular type of clan, one that didn't have any sort of important bloodline but were successful enough to thrive in the warring clan's era. They were a bloodthirsty clan, half of the shinobi lost in some sort of blood haze.

One of the three trainees had died immediately, having died from the trap she had activated which also tripped an alarm. Midori hadn't been able to rescue the trainee, having been watching from afar to act with a hands off attitude. The other two had been forced to abandon the mission and flee.

With a quick response, Midori had leapt after the two fleeing trainees and rescued one from impalement from an enemy shinobi. The two hadn't known she was around, having only been told they were taking a mission, it was the prerogative of the commander that had Midori watching over the team.

It was supposed to be a fairly easy mission, though with dangerous repercussions if caught. However the risks of getting caught had been deemed too minimal, and so the mission had been assigned to a team of trainees who were almost on the cusp of graduating to be full members of the assassination corps. The clan from which the target came from were horrible sensors but very good berserkers. This meant that it would be tough to catch an assassin let alone a team of assassins watching each other's backs.

It was the one trainee who grew careless, no longer being watchful or vigilant, because she had thought the mission too easy or safe. She had hit a trap and her carelessness had cost her, her life.

Midori blocked and deflected a sword strike from one of her combatants, allowing time for the two trainees to regroup a ways behind her. She was protecting their sorry butts as neither seemed to have any sort of true combat skill, having conscripted into the assassination corps because of their smaller than average (for an Uzumaki) chakra pool and their excellent stealth.

With a loud clank of metal against wood, Midori blocked a kunai that had been thrown at her with the scabbard in her left hand. With a swing of Issen Amimasu, Midori carved a trench into the ground that split a man in two from shoulder to crotch. Again, Midori blocked an attack and gave her own retaliation with a swing from her blade which killed with every strike.

This would have been relatively easier on her part, if Midori wasn't forced to protect her fellow Uzumaki's. Midori sighed and charged a chakra attack before releasing it at the enemy. They had swarmed enough that a few were unable to dodge and so were literally cut off at the knees.

Midori couldn't help but show a self-depreciating smirk as she blocked another attack and used her adamantine sealing chains, with the modified spear head, to block and stab those near her. It was difficult to multitask, using a dozen chains as well as Issen Amimasu, but Midori prevailed relatively well until one of the monsters of the clan wars jumped onto the field.

With an earth shattering jump and an ear splitting crack of earth and stone, a shinobi had jumped onto the playing field with what looked to be arms encased in spiked stone.

"Shit." Midori jumped back after releasing one last technique that killed another two enemy combatants, spraying blood all over. The blood didn't much effect Midori since she was already covered in the liquid from the other shinobi she had killed. Midori made two quick clones which grabbed the two Uzumaki trainees before using as specially created technique to get away as quick as possible, literally by teleporting.

The technique Midori had used was something she had based off of what she thought the Hirashin would be, but Midori currently couldn't use it in battle as it was too difficult to use and concentrate on while battling. She had to use her entire concentration to teleport to a seal, and even thinking about something else in the process would null the technique. It also didn't help that the seal was currently too large and she hadn't found a good way to condense it down, especially as it was currently at the bottom of her list of priorities.

"So, you dare to come to our clan, and try and kill our people?" The enemy shinobi asked, mockingly. His massive stone covered arms grating and crumbling with every movement as he stepped forward slightly to allow for his fellow clans members to get back.

"Sorry 'bout that but it's nothing personal, just business."

This seemed to infuriate the enemy shinobi as Midori could easily tell from the throbbing vein on his forehead. "Just business, aye? We'll see about that!"

He leapt forward, almost faster than Midori could see, and Midori barely had time to block with her sword. With her entire concentration taken up by trying to block or deflect all the strikes and attacks from the enemy, Midori's sealing chains disappeared.

Midori rolled under a strike and was able to slash into the enemy's side however his entire body seemed to be coated in some sort of stone layer that repaired itself easily. Midori deflected a punch to the side, forcing her to push her entire body weight into the deflection, when another punch came at her. The spiky, stone fist smashed into her side and sent her flying through a tree.

There was no way to stop the next attack and Midori was forced to roll out of the way lest she be crushed beneath the shinobi's feet. An earth technique smashed into her body where she was still trying to get to her feet and while in the air, she was kicked like some demented soccer ball through three more trees.

Midori rolled to her feet, feeling her ribs bruised and a few broken along with a broken collarbone, and slashed Issen Amimasu with a good chunk of chakra towards her adversary.

The guy, so confident in his absolute defense that covered his body in stone, didn't dodge or trying blocking. With as much chakra she had injected into her technique that had been sharpened as if a fine razor, the technique smashed into his torso from shoulder to hip and cut through the layers of stone to the flesh underneath. Unfortunately, this didn't kill him, and he was only injured.

With an enraged yell, the shinobi raced forward while using a series of earth techniques that shot up as if in a wave of spikes. Midori jumped clear of the jutsu, one which would have shredded her body much like it did the trees that she had been kicked through.

Kunai and shuriken were thrown by the other shinobi waiting on the sidelines, trying to stay out of the main fight for now, and Midori barely deflected the ones aimed for vital points while dodging a series of punches and kicks from the rock covered shinobi. Kunai nicked and cut into her body at various points, and blood simply seemed to ooze from all over her body.

The enemy kept attacking and Midori could barely keep up, pushing her body to the max in doing so.

With her collarbone broken, Midori's arm was hanging useless as she couldn't actually move it so she was already at a major disadvantage. She couldn't even get a break long enough to use one of the seals on her stomach and so she was feeling pretty desperate.

With a loud cry, Midori dodged around a stone fist and used a quick 6-strike combo that, combined with the piercing power of lightning chakra, struck through the enemy's stone covered chest enough to get underneath. The shinobi let out a yell while clutched his chest for a moment, the stone already regenerating over the wounds so he didn't bleed out, before jumping forward to swing his massive stone arms around.

Unable to dodge, Midori was caught by his swinging fist, spikes cutting through layers of armor to pierce through skin and muscle. Smacked back, Midori twisted herself around, ignoring the horrible pain from her broken ribs, to land on the side of a tree feet first. She kicked off, headed straight towards the stone covered shinobi, and used a different but more dangerous 24-strike combo.

With enough power behind the sword technique, one which was half as powerful since it was made to be used with the scabbard when covered with wind chakra to be used as a second sword, Midori was able to kill her combatant with a messy decapitation that had an arterial spray coating her face with droplets of crimson blood.

The technique pretty much drained her stamina, but it gave Midori enough of a chance to stand completely still in a standoff against the other shinobi. They might have all been frozen in anticipation, that frozen moment right before initiating battle, but Midori was using that moment to replenish her chakra stores with a bit of nature chakra.

At the unseen signal, Midori attacked with a quick sword technique, one that made Issen Amimasu's natural whistle sound turn into a scream. Only a few shinobi caught on after they were frozen by the horrific sound and released the genjutsu, but by that time Midori had already jumped forward to the nearest shinobi to perform quick decapitations.

With only a handful still alive, Midori chased them down and performed quick assassinations since they had tried running away. It was fairly easy to finish the last enemy shinobi as they tried running away, it being much easier for her to catch up and take them out with stealth than a straight up fight.

With the enemy dead, Midori quickly formed a few water clones and had them begin setting up a fake scene of her death. She had the clones set up all the shinobi as if they had surrounded her, and therefore she had performed a suicide technique so as not to be captured. It was quick, but thorough, and soon Midori had a newly created blood clone perform the technique. Finally, Midori left behind a fake body, all crispy and destroyed but having been created with her DNA so that when the Uzumaki clan came with backup, they would be able to find her 'body.'

With that finished, Midori dispelled the water clones that were standing next to the two recruits as they cried for help to the commander in the assassin corps headquarters. It was right as the two clones were explaining their part in the quick travel that they both burst, startling the commander and two recruits. They all knew that the clones would automatically burst if Midori was knocked unconscious or, which was more than likely, dead.

Midori had figured this was the perfect time to leave the clan while also faking her death so no hunters were sent after her, and no bounty was placed on her head. She had a self-imposed mission, one that would take years to come to fruition, but Midori was determined to stick with it for as long as it would take.

With a swipe of her blood covered fingers at the base of her skull, Midori used a small droplet of chakra to change her appearance. As she ran from the scene of her fake death, leaving no trail behind her to be able to track, Midori's features changed.

Her straight, bright red hair changed completely from the color to the style. Her bangs lengthened so she no longer had a straight hime-cut but instead her bangs were cut at an angle and lengthened a bit while colored snow white. The rest of her hair was the same length, which came to her lower back, but the straight as a board hair was changed so it fell in beautiful ringlets with her hair being a dark Prussian blue at the roots to her shoulders before ever so slowly losing color back to white at the very tips. Midori's normal Uzumaki violet eyes were changed to a silvery grey, one that darkened and lightened with emotions. Finally, her pale skin which burnt easily, was darkened enough so she had a light tan instead.

Midori continued running, not needing to turn back as she had already prepared for this day. It had sprung on her without warning, but Midori was taking this chance lest she miss the opportunity. She had, ever since completing the immortality seal, kept everything on her body in seals in preparation to fake her death and leave. Stuff she needed or wanted was duplicated and stored away including all her stuffed animals, childish as it may seem but she wanted to keep them as a memento of her childhood.

With her careful saving, after having spent mountains of money to practice her smithing, she had amassed enough money to live at least comfortably (for a shinobi) without needing to find some form of work for at least a few years. All she would really be spending her money on, would be food and other necessary supplies because she wouldn't be settling down and creating a base of operations for a few years at the very least. The money she had saved up, from her weapons she had been able to sell and the art she had sold, was just enough money to get by as long as it wasn't spent frivolously.

Midori didn't plan on much, as she had no clue of the actual timeline for a while as she didn't know much of anything about Madara or Hashirama. She wasn't going to spend fruitless years trying to track the two boys down, especially when she had no experience tracking anything. She could find and kill when she knew the general location of her target, but she had no clue other than the generic 'fire country' as to where the Senju and Uchiha clans would be located.

For now, Midori was content to run for as long as her legs would let her before crashing in the branches of some tree. Her plans were to travel, learn more about the civilian side of the population, help where she could, sell some art work after a few years, build a base of operations, pick up smithing again, and wait for Konoha to come around.


	31. Chapter 31

(Ukitake POV)

Ukitake stood as stiff as a board, his muscles so taught that they seemed ready to snap with the slightest movement. He was dressed in his finest armor, and wearing the weapons his daughter had created for him in open view. Dozens of others showed up for the funeral, all wearing the weapons Midori had created, weapons that had saved lives with how well they were made. It was a closed coffin funeral, and Ukitake could hear his wife sobbing uncontrollably over the death of their only child.

The Uzumaki shinobi had left as quickly as possible, Ukitake at the lead, to bring back up to Midori from a mission gone wrong. They had run for hours without stop, and Ukitake had been horrified at the obvious destruction of some sort of suicide jutsu when he had stumbled upon the circle of destruction.

Kikyou was crying, holding a portrait of Midori tightly along with a scroll that had been found in Midori's will.

The will, which divided everything Midori owned to different people and the clan, was set to be read directly after the funeral to be quick and easy for those who would be receiving anything.

Ukitake gripped his weapons, the weapons gifted to him by his daughter, and didn't let up the stony facade that kept his emotions in place.

The ceremony was simple, only a few flowers surrounding Midori's coffin. Finally, as most of the guests began leaving, Ukitake stood up while unfurling a scroll for the few who had been asked to stay.

"I will now read the last will and testament of Uzumaki Midori." He stated, calmly but with a stony edge to his voice, "I, Uzumaki Midori, being of sound mind, declare this to be my Last Will and Testament. I revoke all wills and codicils previously made by me. I appoint Uzumaki Ukitake as my Personal Representative to administer this Will, and ask that he be permitted to serve without Court supervision and without posting bond. If Uzumaki Ukitake is unable to serve, then I appoint Uzumaki Kikyou to serve as my Personal Representative, and ask that she be permitted to serve without Court supervision and without posting bond.

"I direct my Personal Representative to pay out of my private accounts all of the expenses of my death, administration expenses, all legally enforced creditor claims, all taxes imposed by the clan, and all other clan charges imposed by reason of my death without seeking reimbursement from or charging any person for any part of the taxes and charges paid, and if necessary, reasonable funeral expenses, including the cost of any suitable marker for my grave, without the necessity of an order of court approving said expenses.

"I devise, bequeath, and give the sword named Soyokaze to Uzumaki Yuri so it may serve and protect you in the field. I devise, bequeath, and give the sword named Daitan Futekina to Uzumaki Hisane so it may serve and protect you in the field. I devise, bequeath, and give the set of paintings labeled for Uzumaki Mito so they may brighten up your life and tell you the truths of the world. I devise, bequeath, and give the set of paintings labeled for the clan head, Uzumaki Saito, so he may use them to ease negotiations between different clans and the Uzuamki. I devise, bequeath, and give all of the rest and remainder of my belongings to Uzumaki Ukitake and Uzumaki Kikyou to do with as they see fit. Signed Uzumaki Midori."

Ukitake could hear his wife's sobs all the louder, after having read their daughter's will. He kept a stony face, not letting any emotion out, as he unsealed scrolls from each point on the will. He handed the swords away to Midori's only surviving teammate and then to her old sensei. Ukitake then handed two scrolls full of ink paintings to his clan head, one which would be held in trust for young Mito since she was only a few months old.

By the time both he and Kikyou got home, his stony facade had cracked and he couldn't help clutching his wife close. By the time they got home, he opened the last two seals on the will, each addressed to Ukitake and Kikyou.

Kikyou sobbed all the harder as she held Midori's last words in her hands while Ukitake took a deep, fortifying breath to read Midori's last words to him.

«Dear Tou-san,

I love you dearly, and I thank you for raising me no matter how difficult I knew I could be. Thank you for loving me, holding me, teaching me, supporting me, and everything a good father is supposed to. Remember, no matter how much Kaa-san wears the pants in your relationship when at home, she's still over emotional. So you take good care of her, no matter what. Obviously, my room won't be messed with too much but make sure to look under the tatami mats, in the upper right hand corner. In there, will be everything I ever made, learned and created. All of the techniques I made so far, at least the ones I know will be deemed helpful to the clan without a chance of being leaked to anyone else. Some of those techniques I created could be considered forbidden techniques so be careful, only use a clone to practice and not with your own hands.

Now, you might not know this, but I stole jutsu's and artifacts from every single place I have ever been excluding allied clans. This means I have a comprehensive jutsu library of over a thousand techniques, most of which I haven't touch or bothered learning such as earth techniques or fire techniques. The ones I focused my attention on were the water, lightening, and wind techniques. I have the natural affinity for water but developed affinities for lightning and then wind as I began using them so much. Many of those techniques I had at least memorized if I didn't actually practice them. I also created a library of some of the different sword techniques I have created, many of which require high enough chakra control along with a large amount of chakra that only a handful of Uzumaki shinobi could pull them off, mainly medic-nin.

Now, the artifacts are categorized from simple to lethal. The ones I deemed too dangerous were long destroyed by my hands. I have also created more armor than I knew what to do with, though I never tried selling any of the pieces, so you can do with them as you wish. Most of the weapons I made have been given or sold at this point so there are only a few weapons left behind to do what you want with them.

Finally, I know how difficult it was for Kaa-san to have a kid, but it states in both letters, that in the far left corner of the hidden library I created, there will be a seal on the wall. You both need to give up a pint of blood to this seal. Once you do, only wait a careful ten months while giving it both your chakra every single day. The one who gives more chakra is the one that will triumph in the end. I won't tell you exactly what will happen after the ten months, but I'm already positive you guys will love it to your heart's content. I had been planning on giving you the seal as a present if I ever died, just so you guys wouldn't be so lonely, and now it'll be put to good use.

I love you Tou-san,

Your beloved Midori-chan»

Ukitake felt tears rolling down his face as he folded up the letter to tuck it away for safe keeping. He hugged Kikyou tightly as she finished her own letter and keened for their lost daughter.

Once they felt ready enough, Ukitake guided Kikyou to Midori's room and pulled up the tatami mat that hid a trap door. One which neither parent had known existed in the first place. Down the ladder, was a room about the thirty feet by ten feet with bookcases lining all the walls, each filled to the brim with books and scrolls.

Looking around, exactly like Midori had written in both their letters, there was a massive seal written out on a blank space of wall on the far left corner of the hidden room. With care, both grieving parents cut their hands and placed their bloody palms against the seal.

Without delay, the seal shone brightly before sucking at both their blood and their chakra. After a few minutes, they were both hitting at chakra exhaustion and both had blacked out from blood loss.

It was after they woke up, that they noticed the seal pulsing as if a heartbeat. The symbols making up the seal were obscured, and it was also ready to detonate a series of explosions to protect itself should anyone try unraveling it. Ukitake looked to his still unconscious wife and picked her up gently to bring her back into the house. He knew that they had both been out for at least a few hours, especially as he could feel exhaustion dragging at his limbs and mind.

Setting Kikyou in bed, he undressed from his armor and got into bed, hugging his wife close.

~~~~Time Skip Ten Months Later~~~~

Ukitake held his wife's hand as he helped her down the ladder, his fierce wife had gotten sick recently and seemed listless from grief. Neither of them had really gotten past the death of their only child, but they made their way to the hidden room under Midori's bedroom to see exactly what the seal was performing.

They only had to wait a few hours when the seal glowed bright as the sun, before collapsing and disappearing. However on the floor, beneath the seal, was a small wiggling bundle covered in some sort of ink blanket.

Ukitake and Kikyou were frozen in shock until the little bundle let out a cry of distress which had Kikyou jumping forward to hold the small creature against her breast.

Kikyou cried harder, though without a sound, as she hugged the small bundle tightly to herself. "Midori-chan is always looking over us, isn't she?" Kikyou asked while coming closer to her husband who still stood frozen in shock and disbelief.

Ukitake looked down at the bundle in his wife's arms and let out a few tears even as he was smiling at the small babe wrapped in the fuinjutsu ink blanket. "I would think that Midori knew all along that something might happen. I promise that this little one will know all about his or her big sister, and the little one will know how awesome of a big sister Midori could have been."

Kikyou smiled, seeming to gain energy from wherever she had lost it in the wake of her grief. "Yes, our Midori gave us a gift that we will forever cherish."

"What should we name it?" Ukitake asked his wife, not taking his eyes of the small babe who had fallen asleep in exhaustion at this point.

"I was thinking Haruki, for showing us the clear sky and the sunlight when all we thought of was dark clouds and grief." Kikyou stated while gently rubbing her fingers against the soft cheek of their new child.

Ukitake kissed his wife's brow, and hugged her gently with their new child held in between them. "I was thinking, that maybe it was time to retire. I'm getting old, and I would like to spend as long as I have on this earth with our child."

Kikyou leaned her head against her husband's shoulder, "Yes, I would like that. You have already lived past when many others would have died, so I think it is time to not push our luck. This means that you can help take care of this child with me, instead of going off for work." Kikyou couldn't help but release a giggle, "This definitely means you're on diaper duty, Mr. Uzumaki."

Ukitake couldn't hold in the groan at the thought of at least a year or two of smelly diapers. "You wouldn't be cruel to an old man, would you?"

Kikyou slipped from her husband's arms and made her way slowly back up the ladder into the house without saying a word or looking back.

"Honey, dear? You know I love you, right? You wouldn't be that cruel, right? Right? Honey?!"

Kikyou let out a giggle as she continued ignoring her husband, letting him panic at the thought of so many dirty and smelly diapers. She looked down at the small bundle in her arms and smiled, "You are just going to be the best thing ever, and we'll make sure you're happy and safe for as long as possible. We'll train you until you can take on the world!" The small babe just went on sleeping without a care in the world and Kikyou smiled, "Thank you for being born, Haruki, and thank you Midori for giving us another child."


	32. Chapter 32

(20 Years Old)

Midori sighed as she applied some makeup. Her silver eyes were given a thick outline of kohl with some dark blue eye shadow that matched the color of her hair. A little blush was added and some bright red lip stain for the finish, and Midori was finished. With a quick brush of her hair, the dark blue hair that lightened to predominately ice blue before turning snow white at the tips, was set in a twist that was kept in place with a few hair pins that had bells dangling from the ends. Her snow white bangs where brushed to the side a bit to help highlight the shape of her face but weren't pinned up.

Finished with her hair, Midori dressed in a new outfit that she had made from scratch, just one of the things she was thankful that she was taught by her mother. She had three main outfits that she now wore: kimonos for looking nice, a half kimono outfit for travel or everyday wear, and her armor for protection when fighting.

Right now, Midori was wearing her more comfortable traveling and everyday outfit which consisted of a black turtle neck under a dark Prussian blue kimono top lined with ice blue with her black fingerless gloves and gold colored metal bracer. Her pants were black that matched her black, knee high boots which were covered with gold colored greaves. On her right thigh was her weapons pouch for easy access. Over the dark, Prussian blue kimono top was a long ice-blue half-haori that only covered her left arm and went down to the ankle on the left side with black tiger stripes decorating the sleeve and bottom edge. On the shoulder of the half haori was Midori's new mon, or heraldry symbol, which consisted of a eight pronged hollow sun with the coloring being the dark Prussian blue. Over the kimono top and half haori was a black chest piece that completely covered Midori's torso with gold colored edging and was cinched tight around the waist with a gold tie and kept in place over the left shoulder with the half haori with a kyubi no ita (small plate to protect the fastenings).

(A/N: outfit is like ALO Klein just with different colors and tiger stripes instead of flames... Pic of Midori posted as cover image for story)

Midori was enjoying all the blue, black, and gold colors when she had always been around predominately red and orange colors because of the Uzumaki red hair and Uzumaki orange crest. She was even thinking of making her new clan colors as blue, black and gold.

Midori exited the inn she had stayed at for the night, having wanted a shower and bath after making sure not to stay in one place for more than a few hours for weeks, just to be on the safe side. The bed at the inn had been luxurious as if a cloud after having spent weeks sleeping in trees and on a bed roll. Breakfast was found at a vendor, some squid that was kept in water to keep it live before being cut up still alive. Midori liked squid, though she had first been disgusted at the fact that it still moved even when the chef cut off the brain to get at the meat. Her second favorite was eel, especially eel on sushi with some crab and that sweet eel sauce.

Finished with her meal, Midori made her way slowly out of the town she had visited to stay in the inn. Now, she was on her way to get to some sort of mountain range and build a base of operations that she would be staying in for more than a few years. Midori had already made plans for where she would like to live and how she would like to live. It would take a few years to build but Midori was determined to build her soon to be home by herself without having to hire anyone else.

With her skill with smithing, and plenty of experience with the simple missions she had taken around Uzu to help upkeep the buildings, paint fences, paint rooms, rebuild roofs, and other such home improvement missions, Midori felt good enough to try building her home herself. She just needed to find the perfect place.

Midori continued traveling, only needing to walk since she didn't feel like running. At a few times, she even came upon some civilian travelers, all armed to the teeth and eyeing her careful to discern if she was a threat.

Having dealt predominantly with shinobi and rich civilians, it was a jarring experience to see the true side of the civilian population. They had all been hit hard by the clan wars, always as casualties from shinobi fights spilling over. Many carried some sort of weapon as protection especially since no shinobi clan really cared about the bandits roaming the roads, especially since shinobi really only fought against other shinobi.

More than a few times Midori found herself massacring some bandit camp, each and every one of them filled to the brim with thieves and rapists.

The roads were long and lonely, but Midori was using this time to unwind and decompress from her shinobi life. As she traveled, she didn't often have to fight and traveling like a civilian on civilian roads meant that shinobi didn't really attack her thought there was still the occasional bloodthirsty psychopath.

~~~~Time Skip One Year Later~~~~

Midori wiped at her brow and took in a deep breath while looking around the mountain range she was hiking over, trying to find a perfect spot. She was looking for anyplace that would be easily protected and not easily found. Personally, Midori was looking for some sort of sheer cliff like areas with some nice scenery. She was only a basic at earth techniques, and while it would take more chakra to use nature manipulations than any actual technique, she would be able to build some sort of home within the rocks of the cliffs.

Everything was already planned out and her base of operations could be lit up with mirrors so she could invite civilians to live in her hidden city.

Midori stepped up to the edge of a cliff, one she was hoping would be like the one she imagined, and sighed in relief and awe at the breathtaking view. She stood upon a cliff side that overlooked a small valley, cut through by a dangerously fast river. To either side of the river were thick forests of evergreen trees and a perpetual mist hung around the forest making it look dark and haunted.

It was perfect.

With care, Midori used the chakra control to walk down the side of the cliff for a few hundred feet before using rock natured chakra to dig an entrance to what would eventually turn into a massive cavern. For now, Midori would only create an alcove, one which took plenty of chakra and a sealing scroll to seal away the excess rock and dirt.

Low clouds hung around the small valley before releasing a slow drizzle. Midori was hidden from the drizzle but the clouds still invaded her little alcove and made everything damp.

To fight the dampness of this cloud, Midori released some firewood from a storage scroll and set it aflame with a simple campfire jutsu, a jutsu that only released a small tongue of fire and not anything that could be used in battle.

With the flames merrily crackling away, keeping the damp from her person and her belongings, Midori set out a bed roll. Not yet ready to sleep, Midori got out a blank scroll and began painting. Her artwork, she noticed, had really begun lightening and her work was no longer as dark as it once had been. She no longer painted with the mindset of blood and death, but instead life and beauty were her topics.

Midori finishes painting and brought out her biwa (seven stringed lute-like instrument) and began plucking away at the strings. With a quiet snicker, Midori began playing the tune to the Song of Storms even as she could still hear the pitter-patter of rain from in the valley.

~~~~Time Skip Three Years Later~~~~

Midori took out the last bandit with Issen Amimasu, one who had been in a large group trying to rob a small group of travelers. The small group of civilians were huddled, terrified, under their carts as Midori finished off the bandits.

"Are you all okay?" Midori asked as she helped an elderly woman from the ground where she had been thrown by a bandit.

"Yes, samurai-san." Spoke up a man who Midori supposed had to be the leader of the group of civilians.

Midori didn't bother correcting the man's assumption that she was a samurai, it would be viewed better at this time than being seen as a shinobi since most shinobi were viewed in a very bad light. "May I ask where you are all headed to?"

The man, wearing simple clothes that matched his plain face and simple dark brown hair, looked around at his family before replying, "Our home and lands were destroyed by shinobi-" Midori held back the wince, thankful to not have corrected the man at her true occupation with the proof that shinobi were still viewed in a negative light, "-and we were forced to leave lest we starve. We are headed to the nearest town to see if I can get work."

Midori nodded, "I have a place for you to live and work if you wish. All you would need to do, would be to work as you always have."

He looked at her nervously, as if the offer was a trap just waiting to ensnare him and his family. "Where is this place?"

With a calm smile, trying to keep the man from bolting, Midori answered, "I don't have a map, but it is two week's travel from here. It is hidden and protected so no shinobi would ever be able to destroy your lands and home again. If you accept my offer, I can show you where it is located."

The man gave a nervous smile before turning to his family to get their opinions. It was the old woman that Midori had helped up from the ground that bashed her cane over the man's head, this made Midori assume she was the man's mother, that the man turned back and accepted the offer.

The travel was slow and tiring. The ox pulling the single cart, which carried the few belongings the family still had along with most of the family, was slow as a slug. Midori wished to go a little faster at the very least, but was pleasantly surprised that the ox never seemed to tire and just kept plodding on from dawn till dusk. Travelling to her hidden village took an extra two days, but they made it to the valley without much problem. It helped that Midori had thought of civilian type of travel and therefore, had made a simple road to get to the valley in between the towering cliffs on either side.

Midori had a bridge built over the river, with the help of plenty of clones, and it was a beautiful arched bridge with dozens of dangling shide (zigzag-shaped paper streamers) and bells hanging from arches that spanned the entire length of the bridge. They slowly went across from one side of the river to the other, and came upon a zigzagging path that went far enough up the cliff side that it was soon hidden by the low hanging clouds. The path up the cliff side was literally cut into the stone face so that the road was covered. Then there were pillars every ten feet on the edge of the path, carved with the likeness of tigers and dragons, with beautifully carved railing in between each pillar so there was no chance of accidentally falling off the edge of the path.

It took hours to climb up the path, but luckily everyone was just so awed at the sights.

Midori couldn't help but smirk, she was just that awesome to create a working road up a cliff with railing as a safety feature.

Finally, at the very top, the civilian family were awed by the beautiful view of the valley before turning towards the dark cavern to follow Midori who had entered without pause.

The cavern started out dark, before lightening considerably after passing a bend in the path. However it didn't lighten up into any sort of cavern, but it came to a door. A double sided, massive and beautifully carved door lit up by a pair of torches, but a door nonetheless. Midori stood in front of this door and smiled warmly to the civilian family even as she opened the door, "Welcome to Taiyō no Seiiki, or the Solar Sanctuary."

The civilians were awed at the sight, amazed at the beauty before them. It was a massive cavern with what looked to be naturally formed stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites reaching for the sky. At the very front, was a massive crystalline pool with what looked to be glowing algae that shown in cool blues, greens, and purples. Colorful koi fish darted around the crystal clear waters, splashing periodically.

Over the massive crystalline pool was a beautiful stone bridge arched in traditional Japanese style with bells and more shide hanging from over hanging arches. It was across the bridge that a truly beautiful piece of craftsmanship seemed to glow from the luminous algae. It was a mix of ancient Greek and traditional Japanese craftsmanship to form a massive manor that dominated over similarly styled buildings.

What the civilians didn't know, was that Midori had spent a little over three years crafting everything with her chakra and hundreds of clones.

Midori remembered being in a command tent, giving orders to the hundreds of clones which she kept creating and didn't bother dispelling since there was so much work to do. They trooped around, ever so slowly doing various jobs such as molding the stalactites, which were in no way naturally formed over hundreds of years but instead molded within a few days for each.

She remembered visiting Carlsbad Caverns in her previous life, and many of those beautiful formations were prevalent in her new home. However, since none of the stalactites and stalagmites weren't formed naturally, she could decide what she wanted where as well as adding the 'rare' types to create a beautiful mosaic that looked natural to any visitors.

Midori had spent hundreds of clones trying various ways to create crystals as well, so massive pillars of crystals grew from in between the stalactites and stalagmites. She had been forced to experiment for weeks on end, with hundreds of clones to find how exactly chakra could build crystal. She had found the specific ratio of lightning and earth chakra to create the crystals but it was not something she could do naturally or with ease. It also took enough chakra to make one giant man-sized crystal that she could create a lake of water with a regular jutsu.

Over the years of building and creating, Midori had started taking out all of her belongings that she had stored in various storage scrolls. In the goodbye letter to her parents, which she still choked up thinking about, Midori had told them she had destroyed any dangerous artifacts she had found but it was a lie. All those dangerous artifacts were too useful to be destroyed on a whim. They were dangerous, yes, but in the right hands they could prove useful.

The giant manor she had created was made to be filled, not entirely empty. She had a dozen guest rooms, but all the other rooms had actual uses. There was a training room, a trophy room, a storage room, a sealing room, a kitchen, dining hall, an equipment room which consisted of artful settings for both weapons and armor, a library, a sitting room, etc.

Already, Midori had filled a good portion of the trophy room with different artifacts as well as the equipment room which had dozens of display cases already filled with weapons.

Midori looked to the civilian group, wanting to smirk at their slack-jawed appearances but felt it was too rude. Midori had spent years building a place where a secret community could live, one where she was the leader and where she would never be ousted for not aging for as long as she needed.

The community she was planning on building was all to support her goal, to have a bright future for the land, and she just needed people now to help populate this hidden community. She planned on making the community something that would be highly advanced with tools and techniques from her previous life that she still remembered. Personally, she was too selfish to try spreading all the information she had from thousands of years of evolution from her previous world, and she knew that spreading too much information too fast would cause devastation.

With a small community that she resided over, Midori could control the flow of information and ideas so that nothing got too far out of hand. She definitely didn't want to be the spark that ignited any sort of resentment from the lower class against the upper class.

Midori walked across the bridge with a purpose in her step, watching koi swim and splash in the crystal clear pool of water just below her. "There are plenty of empty buildings for you to live in if you wish. Though if you want to cultivate land, there are some empty buildings that I can show you that are closer to planting fields."

The head of the small family jogged forward to catch up to Midori, "You would give us land and a home, for free?"

Midori nodded, "The land is something I know can be grown on, and I have check over light mirrors that will help to bring plenty of light to properly grow any crops. With a turn of a wheel, you can add plenty of sunlight to grow your crops especially since the algae doesn't grow out of water so the glow can't reach into the side tunnels and caverns."

The man bowed, thankful and Midori guided the small family to a building in the same style of a mix of Greek and Japanese. They quickly settled their cart while the family went out to a side tunnel that Midori indicated, and were awestruck at the sight of a massive cavern, seeming glowing gold from sunlight that bounced from the sun to a series of mirrors before lighting up the cavern.

(A/N: Imagine the caverns from Stephanie Meyer's _The Host,_ save it is definitely more hidden and closed off)

Midori left the family on their own to settle in, the children already running around playing and giggling which seemed to echo around the caverns Midori had built.

Truthfully, there were still dozens of empty buildings just waiting for new occupants, and Midori was planning on plenty of excursions to find the many different occupants she would need to build a thriving community.

On her list were a few more farmers, a tailor, different types of cooks and chefs, bankers, blacksmiths, butcher, some ranchers who could take care of livestock, maybe a barber, a few doctors or medic nin, an undertaker, laundry service, some police, a messenger service, some military, some miners (as she had found more than a few ore veins), a few hunters who could collect furs and animals from the valley, some teachers, and a bartender for a tavern.

Many of these specialty buildings had already been created, such as two rows of shops and stalls that lined either side of the main street. Now, she just needed to people to fill the small village which would eventually be able to hold around two-thousand people.

She had everything planned out, including the classes that everyone would be able to take and that children would be required to take.

Midori went to sleep that night, still on a bed roll since she had yet to actually buy any sort of futon or mattress for a bed, and prepared herself for the next few years of getting a successful community together.


	33. Chapter 33

(30 Years Old)

Midori sighed, she presided over an entire group of people all just trying to live their day to day lives. Every day, some petty squabbles were brought to her attention and Midori was forced to intercede and fix everything. Luckily, the knowledge she knew from her previous life helped immensely with organizing and helping the small hidden village.

Midori smirked, now she thought about it. Her village was truly the first hidden village, beating the creation of all other hidden villages by at least a decade. In her village, which included the original civilian family she had invited to live here were a few ronin samurai, a few clan-less shinobi, and a dozen other civilian families.

To live in this village, everyone was supposed to work. Those warriors that no longer wanted to fight were allowed to use their skills to help wherever they were able. An old poison user now spent her years cultivating a flower shop and selling poisons to those warriors who were still active. A samurai, who was dismissed from the service of his lord due to his age without as much as a by your leave, now helped guide young children in the academy.

The academy was what Midori was most proud of. She had made it a requirement for every single child from five to sixteen to sit in lessons. They were taught everything from etiquette to literature to mathematics. All students, no matter if they were on the warrior track or civilian track, were required to learn the basics of every single class. It was when they wanted to specialize on the warrior track or civilian track that they took more advanced classes for what they wanted to learn. Midori personally taught different classes, with clones helping as well, to teach various different classes such as fuinjutsu and advanced farming techniques with biology pilfered from her previous life.

Midori sat behind a massive desk, sitting in a large decorated chair which was very comfortable that allowed for squabbling folks to come forward with their grievances. Issen Amimasu was in a place of honor on the wall behind her, framed by a few dozen throwing knives arranged as decoration though they were all still as sharp as the day they were forged. The side walls of the room made from the natural granite, were encased in glass that were filled with water to keep the glowing algae hydrated and healthy. The room literally glowed from the amount of algae, and Midori was quite happy with the effect.

Everything was lit up bright enough but in the cool greens, blues, and purples that just seemed to soften everything. It was in the specific caverns that Midori had made for farmers, which had mirrors bouncing natural light from the outside that made everything in those rooms seem to shine gold. It was truly an awe inspiring sight when a farmer grew wheat, because when it turned gold, everything just seemed too magical to be real.

With her occasional excursions outside of these caverns, Midori had heard how the Uchiha and Senju clans were now constantly fighting each other. She had also heard that Mito was already a kunoichi, with a special emphasis in fuinjutsu.

Midori had also heard a bit about her baby brother, who was twenty years younger than her. Haruki had grown up hearing stories of his big sister and specialized in sword fighting, still trying to actually use the techniques Midori had left behind though Midori would have been able to wipe the floor with him when they were the same age. She suspected that her amazing and prodigal growth was mostly in part to already having twenty years of memories, but it also had to be because she knew the horrible future this world was doomed to until Naruto defeated Kaguya and Madara.

Everything was going good so far, she had heard whispers of the names Madara and Hashirama who were the clan heirs still of their respective clans. Truly, Midori only had to wait, at the most, another decade before the formation of Konoha and all the other hidden villages.

What set Midori's mind at ease would be the fact that she had layered her entire village with enough seals that anyone just passing by would just automatically run or walk around any special landmarks such as the bridge over the river and the beautifully decorated path up into the caverns. The village was truly hidden, and only those that left with a special seal could come back without getting lost. Luckily, all such seals were secretly carved on the necklaces, bracelets, and hair accessories that every single inhabitant wore with pride. It seemed that everyone had begun wearing bells as though to match the decorations on the two bridges (one over the river in the valley and one over the cavern pool).

Midori sighed as she finished hearing the two squabbling residents of Taiyō. They were arguing over some sort of crop dispute, one farmer had planned to plant eggplant but the other had already planted eggplant though he had planned to grow wheat. Midori solved it by saying that the one who was no longer growing eggplant had to give up an eighth of his harvest for the inconvenience even when all farmers had called a meeting to decide on what everyone would be growing.

Finished, Midori stood up and stretch before concentrating on a hidden hiraishin seal planted in Uzu. Every few weeks, Midori came over to watch over her family, especially her baby brother. She had even given Hakuri different anonymous gifts throughout the years such as toys when he was younger and weapons as he began training to be a shinobi.

Careful to hide her chakra and disguise it with nature chakra, Midori spied upon her little brother practicing in the back yard. Her old forge was still standing, neither Ukitake nor Kikyou having the heart to try taking it down, and Haruki was careful to not practice too close to the unkempt forge.

She watched him perform his katas, going from beginner to intermediate. He still wasn't the best, but Midori knew he had the heart to practice without giving up. Midori watched him practice, and couldn't help smirking as she saw him practicing with an old weapon she had forged ages ago, years before the creation of Issen Amimasu.

The hour passed quickly, Midori practically ignoring the world around her even as she used the various stealth techniques she had learned and been trained in to stay hidden. It would mess up her plans to be found out, and she knew with absolute certainty that her parents would know who she was regardless of the change in hair and eye color.

Going back to her manor was just as easy as jumping the Uzu. She sighed and relaxed a bit in her chair as she watched the algae decorating the walls behind the glass, moved in the slight current as if it was some sort of fur on a giant beast or bijuu.

Looking out the window of her office, one which had a door connected to a room meant to be used as a mission assignment room. Another door in her office let out to the main hallway of her manor home, and the last door was used as a storage closet. The large window, framed by glass covered algae on all four sides, looked over the main street of Taiyō. Leaning against the algae wall, Midori could make out the sight of the massive cavern pool as well as the bridge that spanned all the way across it.

She had built this place and filled it with misfits, undesirables, and the lost. She needed a base of operations for the many years ahead, and a small hidden community would be her ticket to success. Despite the passing years, Taiyō was still in its infancy, and Midori couldn't leave for more than a day lest certain people start fighting.

There were still dozens of empty homes just waiting to be filled by eager new families and plenty of extra space in the academy regardless of a student's future occupation. Even with night classes to allow for the adults in the community to learn if they wanted, the academy still had empty seats and empty classrooms. Midori knew that the population would rise from the measly one-hundred eighty-three people currently living in Taiyō, but it would take a while longer.

It was definitely a good thing that Midori had thought of how she would have steady and private food source with turned into wanting a private community at her back. Even now, food supply was so great, with techniques she had introduced from her previous life, that everyone was gaining a healthy luster. No longer did Midori see the common look upon young faces of hard times and lean meals. Now, everyone could eat their fill and all waste went in a massive and carefully tended compost heap to help fertilize the crops.

One thing that Midori enjoyed, and that she didn't personally introduce to the community, were climbing roses. These vines were carefully tended by an ex-shinobi so they were constantly in full bloom. The poor guy had lost his right ear and eye in a brutal attack, leaving behind horrible scarring where he lost a few fingers and could no longer lift with his right arm because of how badly it had healed after shattering in the attack. He jumped at loud noises and often suffered nightmares which bled over in the form of horrific flashbacks and panic attacks.

The one thing that seemed to keep the ex-shinobi calm, was tending to his climbing roses. Any rose that was colored completely red was snipped as soon as it bloomed and he liked setting them on Midori's office desk as some sort of thank you gift. However, these full red roses weren't the most common since he cultivated as many colors as possible: blue, orange, purple, pink, white, yellow, red, marbled, etc. He even had a carefully cultivated rose bush with absolutely beautiful silver roses.

Luckily, the algae gave off the correct type of light that made the rose vines and rose bushes grow like crazy.

For now, Midori was happy with the people she had living in her community. They all worked to better their lives, all helping each other when needed. No one was lazy or fed off the good work of others. There were no nobles to live off the livelihood of others, and no lazy council members who tried lining their pockets with gold. All council members were the elderly, and they only got together to settle disputes that Midori might not have the time for or to bring certain needs to Midori's attention.

They weren't allowed to create or pass laws or rules, they could advise her on any decisions, but Midori had made sure that the council of elders would never be able to grab power. The only rule they had passed was an age requirement that no one could join the council of elders until they were in their sixties which was practically ancient in this day and age, even for civilians. Midori had made the council of elders so that they were viewed with respect and honor for the years they had lived, but they would never be able to rule the community. Such a status would mean that corruption could never tempt any council members, for they could do nothing but settle disputes of the citizens of Taiyō or bring certain things to Midori's attention.

Midori went to her forge, made even better than the make-shift forge she had created in Uzu two decades previously, and began practicing her craft. She had always been a weapon's crafter, but ruling over a community largely made from civilians still meant she put her smithing skills to crafting items meant to sow wheat and not death. In the past few years, she had made hundreds of different items, all things she hadn't realized were so vital to the lives of those living in Taiyō.

Once she had a few more blacksmiths, they could do the bulk of the work that Midori was needed for.

As she slaved away before the hot fires of her forge, banging away at red-hot metal, Midori thought of how she wanted the military of Taiyō structured.

She would have shinobi and samurai working for the safety of the community, but Midori didn't quite know how she would mesh the two different groups together. Samurai thought that the shinobi were honor less and the shinobi thought the samurai were too rigid and traditional. Midori was truthfully thinking of making special pairings of a samurai with a shinobi partner so one could do what the other could not when out on missions. Both classes would train in the use of chakra, but the samurai would focus on their sword skills and other techniques while the shinobi would focus on ninjutsu and genjustu.

Now that she was thinking about it, that was a pretty good idea. Have a shinobi-samurai partnership so to create comradery within the different groups, and the pairing would allow for diverse missions since the samurai could do things the shinobi could not and vice versa. Then to watch over the pair, there would be another more experienced pair to create a four man team. The higher ranked samurai in the team could help train the lower ranked samurai and the higher ranked shinobi could help train the lower ranked shinobi.

There would be teams of four (consisting of two samurai and two shinobi), squadrons of four teams (sixteen fighters), platoons of four squadrons (sixteen teams and sixty-four fighters), companies of four platoons (sixty-four teams and two hundred-fifty six fighters), and four divisions (two hundred- fifty six teams and one thousand-twenty four fighters). For now, there were barely enough capable and willing fighters to fill two squadrons. However, Midori knew that there were already dozens of young children in the academy trying to get into the warrior track and become fighters by separating into the samurai path or shinobi path.

When the first true graduating class came around, Midori was going to support a team with one of the ronin she had invited to live in Taiyō and create one of the first teams.

The samurai that she was going to be working with was an honorable man, too old to truly fight and protect a liege lord so had been dismissed from service despite the years of service. Fukushima Akahiro was an honorable man, taking good care of his weapons and armor though he was getting too old to survive any sort of fast paced fight the likes of which Midori could.

The two children they were going to form a team with would be Takata Fumio for the samurai path and Murayama Harada for the shinobi path. However, each of them were still a few years from properly graduating the academy.

It didn't help that no matter how genius or prodigal a student was, Midori had made a rule that no student could pass through the academy without taking sex-education. The clause to this rule, no matter what, was that no child could take sex-education until they turned ten. This meant that no young kids, no matter how smart or prodigal could be thrown out into battle without plenty of training. However, because of how new the academy still was, classes were a hodgepodge assortment of different classes still trying to accommodate night classes for the civilian adults wanting to become literate.

Midori knew that in another decade, the community would settle into a steady rhythm and the academy would also settle into a steady rhythm to accommodate a steady flow of students. At its current state though, the community was still in slight turmoil from the novelty of it all and as such, the academy was in turmoil from the high influx of students. This meant that practically everyone were at different levels and classes were slow going. Once there was a steady rhythm of students all coming at the same age to start classes, the classes would move faster and much more smoothly.

For now, all Midori needed to do was wait before allowing for missions to bring in an income to the community. Though they definitely weren't hurt for cash, especially since she had hundreds of storage scrolls filled with beautiful granite that was easily sold to the nobles rich enough to afford the stone which was cut and polished for high market value.

They were a mainly self-sufficient community as she had a few civilians doing nearly every job imaginable. With her help, there were even paper makers that had begun selling such high quality paper that it was at a very high market value. They cultivated rice fields, and after turning the stalks to pulp along with mulberry bark, it was set out on plain rock out on the cliffs to dry out in the sun and rain for an entire year. Squares of rice stalk and mulberry bark pulp would be flipped so all the pulp would bleach in natural lighting. Afterwards, it would be set in a water mixture to turn into watery pulp and shredded even finer, before being sifted on large wire meshes to create paper which would take over a day to properly dry each piece of paper.

Midori had shown how to do the basics of making good quality paper to a dozen members of the community and they took to paper making with a passion and dedication that surprised her.

Surprisingly enough, they even had a silk farm because the silk worms ate mulberry leaves. The mulberry trees were used for their berries to make different jams if not just plainly eaten, their leaves for the silkworms, and the bark for the paper.

Silk worms were carefully fed until they began forming cocoons. After hatching, the cocoons were harvested and set to soak in various solutions to help separate the fibers. Eventually, the silk fibers were turned into silk cloth that was made into various different patterns. The bolts of silk could be turned into clothes by the tailors or Midori carried the bolts of silk to towns and cities farther away from Taiyō to pay for needed supplies.

However, even being the leader of Taiyō, Midori still went out to steal various different jutsus and techniques from different shinobi clans around the continent. With this, she still got in fights and so her skills were kept sharp.

To get even better, Midori also trained constantly and kept up her training seal which was so high now that she could crack stone with each step if there were actual training weights other than her the weight seal. Her training lasted for three hours every morning before breakfast before she helped around Taiyō or did paperwork. Then, after lunch, she trained for another six hours unless some event came up that needed her attention. After dinner, Midori let that time be for relaxing and doing whatever she wanted.

Training consisted often of running miles and miles around a massive track purposely built into the caverns (measured at a circumference of 3.5 miles), pushups, sit-ups, curl-ups, lunges, squats, stretches, weight training, sword training, jutsu training, chakra control exercises, and anything else she could think of. She did the exact same training as all children in the academy, going only a little faster than the preteens, but she was weighed down by well over three-hundred pounds of weight all over her body.

Until such a time that Midori could visit and spy on Konoha, which still wasn't even close to being created, Midori was going to prepare herself as well as possible. She wanted to see if it was at all possible to just kill Madara after his fight with Hashirama after the creation of Konoha. Doing that, would stop a lot of the problems that would occur in the future but Midori didn't know if black zetsu would work around Madara and just start manipulating some other Uchiha.


	34. Rewrite Posted! This is NOT an Update!

Author's Note

 **THE REWRITE HAS ALREADY BEEN POSTED!**

Sorry folks, but I don't quite like how my story is going so far... I am rewriting this fanfiction and have already posted a few chapters. these chapters 1-12 are nearly the exact same as the original story however in the next few chapters I will be adding more content. It seems to me as though my character got through everything nearly smelling as fresh as a daisy with very few hardships in between. I will be adding more missions content, trying to give more substance to a character that I view as rudimentary and simple... she seems to be near perfect in everything she does and I want to show that no, she isn't great and she can have emotional upsets like any normal person... I don't want a perfect Mary Sue which my character was turning out to be.

Thank you for you time and reviews and I hope you will enjoy the rewrite even better.


	35. Update

For those of you following this story... the rewrite has finally caught up and I will post a new chapter in a day or two...

Sneak Peek!

The new chapter will feature Kazeshini's (Midori's) brother, the Uzumaki clan, the start of Konoha, and a bit about the Hatake clan... there will be a massive fight between the ninja Hatake clan and the samurai's... just so you're interested.


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